Hedonic damages are claimed in a personal injury case that seeks to obtain compensation for the loss of enjoyment that the victim suffers from the results of the injury. These damages are intended to off-set the non-economic impact of an injury (the inability to do things that a plaintiff enjoyed doing before the injury). In American law, hedonic damages are another term for damages due to loss of enjoyment of life, which are compensatory non-economic damages awarded in personal injury cases. These damages are the intangible injuries he/she suffers due to an injury, focusing on the decline of his or her ability to get on with the activities of life.
The following are useful points when discussing this topic:
- Hedonic damages cover the inability to do things that a person used to enjoy, be it hobbies, sports, or even simple daily activities.
- The newfound inability to perform such acts makes life less enjoyable.
- Hedonic is the more technical term, while lawyers refer to them as “loss of enjoyment of life” damages.
- The concept of measuring happiness or well being is what classical economists refer to as “hedonic.”
Hedonic Damages Issues
Because hedonic losses involve what is essentially an intangible, non-economic value and one that each person perceives differently, damages are both hard to prove and hard to quantify. For the latter point, such evidence is almost always a demonstration of what one can no longer do because of the injury.
Hedonic Damages in Arizona
Under Arizona law, a hedonic damage award should be a relatively easy determination once the jury here is given an instruction upon which to base the evidence to consider. Now, Arizona law affords persons recovery for non-economic damages, including pain and suffering, loss of consortium, and loss of enjoyment of life. Within the non-economic damages class in Arizona, hedonic damages are a subset. Arizona courts have upheld that hedonic damages are recoverable through a personal injury lawsuit under the general category of non-economic damages. The courts often base estimates of this kind of damage on expert testimony, with the level of loss of enjoyment of life being subjective and changing with the types of cases.
Illustration of Hedonic Damages in an Arizona Personal Injury Lawsuit
Consider, for example, a man who has a great deal of pleasure in life from mountain climbing and running marathons. Call that man John. One day, while driving in Arizona, John is in a car crash and sustains an injury to his spine that severely paralyzes him below the waist. In addition to purely economic damages (medical costs, lost wages) and more general non-economic damages (pain and suffering), John has a claim for hedonic damages because his injuries prevent him from pursuing his favorite hobbies and pastimes—mountain climbing and marathon running—that brought him huge pleasure and satisfaction. To support his claim for hedonic damages, John’s attorney might bring in testimony from a life care planner or economist, who can describe how John’s injuries have affected his capacity to enjoy his life and provide the pleasure in life. He might also bring to the court his family members, friends, and colleagues to testify as to the ways his life and activities have been impacted. The jury or judge would take such testimony into account when determining how much money to award for hedonic damages. The objective here is to reward the monetary compensation to John as a sign of deep pains and losses for the loss of enjoyment in life due to the injury.
Conclusion
Hedonic compensatory damages are those that represent the loss of enjoyment of life and loss of enjoyment of activities that the injured individual could not be able to live. The state of Arizona is one of the states that allow the compensation by the state and the amounts awarded are considerable, basing on the effects caused by the injury to the quality of life of an individual.