Emotional distress or mental pain and suffering is extremely hard to understand, let alone determine. In fact, many people tend to suffer from it, even after getting recovered from physical injuries a long time ago. They can disrupt the regular activities of one’s life by taking all their happiness.
As a result, it rounds us up to the question, can I sue for emotional distress? If so, how much can I sue for emotional distress in Canada?
Well, you can definitely take legal action with the assistance of a lawyer in Medicine Hat against someone for whose negligence you are having to suffer from it. And for the amount this usually varies from case to case, depending on the victim and the extremity of the accident.
However, as a general estimation, you can get around $350,000 more or less, based on your case.
Let’s know more in detail below:
What is Meant by Emotional Distress?
Emotional distress is defined as the psychological or mental pain that one tends to experience in their daily life due to the wounds received by an incident.
This distress is also known as mental suffering, as these injuries aren’t visible to the eyes. However, this pain can be so serious that it has the complete power to turn your life upside down. Most of the time, this distress comes with no remedy. So, it is indeed a concerning issue.
Unlike physical pain and injuries, this distress is extremely challenging to calculate and appeal for the exact compensation against it. After all, mental suffering is a very subjective form of damage that varies from person to person based on their wounds and the accident’s severity.
Some common causes of emotional distress
Although there are no specific reasons behind one’s emotional distress, here are some common scenarios that may cause emotional distress:
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Motorbike accident
- Pedestrian accident
- Bicycle accident
- Slip and Fall
- Dog bites
- Medical malpractice
- Workplace accident
Signs of Emotional Suffering/ Psychological Injury
It’s pretty hard to detect psychological injuries compared to physical wounds. as a result, they tend to get serious with time.
Following are some of the common symptoms that most victims show and using, which you can easily recognize if one is going through emotional distress or not:
- Anxiety
- Sudden pain attacks (gets triggered upon recalling the traumatic incident)
- Insomnia
- Discomfort
- Depression
- Short temper
- Crying
- Weight gain or loss
- Loss of sexual desire
- Aggressiveness
- Memory loss
- Mood swings
- Feel less energized
- Loss of life enjoyment
- Appetite loss
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Note: In case you or any of your family members show signs of any of the above-mentioned symptoms after meeting an accident, you must get medical treatment as soon as possible.
What is the Method of Suing Someone for Emotional Distress in Canada?
Suing someone for emotional distress is indeed a tough thing as you cannot put an exact estimation of the pain and suffering the person is going through. That’s why, before taking any step, you must get in touch with an experienced lawyer regarding how to handle the case.
After all, the last thing you will want to face is being misdiagnosed and beginning the case from scratch again.
Let’s look at the things that a qualified lawyer can do for you:
Assessment
Any lawyer at first will assess the entire situation carefully with a keen eye to every detail in an attempt to understand the scenario. They will collect all the necessary information and facts, and if needed, they will take notes by visiting the accident location.
Next up, they will do an initial examination to find out the root cause of the injury, medical history, and several other factors in case it is causing disruptions in your regular activities.
After getting hold of all these data, they will try to build the case, do a calculation of the compensation you deserve from the incident, and how to make your grounds stronger. So the justice is served, and you get what is rightfully yours!
Consultation with the Experts
After the initial assessment with the lawyer, you have to go in for a consultation with a verified expert. Nowadays, many law firms even offer their experts to do a follow-up check-up.
This is basically done to evaluate your current health condition in a better way, both physically and mentally, to make no mistakes.
After analyzing you properly from top to bottom, the specialist will take some time to understand your trauma extent properly. Along with what further things you will require for complete recovery.
Lastly, after successful completion of the sessions, they will give you a detailed report stating how this mental trauma is going to impact your life and work.
Build the case
Once all the evaluations are completed, next up is the turn to gather all the proofs, documents, and medical reports from the eye-witnesses, medical experts, family members, or any other parties involved in the accident.
All these small pieces of proof will help to draw a clear and bigger picture of the entire accident in front of our eyes. It will also help everyone to determine and understand the extremity of the trauma that the victim is suffering from.
Prove the injury
This is by far the most difficult phase as you need to prove the injury. Physical pain and injuries are comparatively much easier to apprehend compared to the emotional ones. And till now, there is no exact ruling on how to determine it.
Hence, it is quite impossible for a normal person to do the calculation. This is where an experienced lawyer comes in handy and thus can be your true savior in doing the estimation.
Know Also: How Long After an Accident Can You Sue in Canada?
How Much Can I Sue For Emotional Distress in Canada?
Since there are non-economic damages in such circumstances, determining compensation might be difficult. Property loss, job inability, a negative impact on one’s professional talents, and other things are all examples of economic damage.
Damages that are not measurable in money are emotional in nature. Together with your lawyer, you can evaluate the circumstances and determine an appropriate figure for compensation. From case to case, the price may change.
Can One Suffer from Emotional Distress Due to the Workplace?
Of course, they can. Nowadays, it is a common phenomenon for employees to suffer from emotional traumas due to workplace situations. It is indeed an alarming thing.
Every employee has the right to enjoy a safe and healthy work environment. In fact, without ensuring these two crucial factors, it is quite impossible to work, let alone give your best shot.
No one should go through any kind of bullying and mistreatment by their employers and colleagues. They have the full right to be treated with respect and dignity, no matter the condition.
However, if things don’t tend to work in a friendly way, this can ultimately lead to emotional distress. After all, everyone has a certain capacity to handle the pain.
Here is the list of some workplace incidents that happen to lead their way to lawsuits:
- A colleague is pursuing or stalking you
- Abused and mistreated by the higher authority. Such as insulting deliberately in front of the clients or other superiors that too on a minor issue
- To be a witness of a hurtful and damaging incident, such as seeing a fellow colleague being abused by others
- Management forces you to work out of your comfort zone. Like you are a minority race person, and thus, intentionally, you are forced to work with someone who is completely racist.
These are just some of the common scenarios that most people tend to face in the workplace. There are more similar cases that can effectively cause one to suffer from acute mental distress.
Hence, if you see any signs of emotional distress, then without any further delay, it’s better that you pay a visit to a doctor for understanding the cause behind this.
Is It Hard to Sue Someone for Emotional Distress in Small Claims Court?
Among all the claims, emotional distress is the most challenging to determine and prove in court.
After all, they are not as evident and computable as physical wounds. Such as, you can ideally use the medical reports and bills and show them as solid evidence to prove your physical injuries. However, the scenario is totally different in the case of emotional distress.
There are just no visible or quantifiable wounds here, which ultimately makes the case much harder to understand. Every person has a different capacity to handle their trauma and distresses. For instance, having the same kind of injury, one can develop anxiety while the other person may fall victim to debilitating suffering.
Besides, the other party’s lawyer can just say that the wounds based on which you are claiming compensation don’t even exist, and thus you are making a false statement.
That’s what calls for an experienced lawyer, as they will know exactly how to deal with the case, so you get what’s rightfully yours.
Otherwise, chances are high that you will have to compromise with your compensation. Besides, why should you leave something and not fight for it when it’s your legal right, right!
How Do You Prove Emotional Distress?
To prove an emotional distress requires much knowledge and expertise, which is quite difficult for an average person to put a tag on. After all, you cannit just put a price tag on someone’s pain and suffering. Only they know exactly how much painful it is and how they are enduring each day of their lives with it.
It is where an experienced lawyer comes to the rescue!
They will know all the gaps and, with their expertise in the law area, can do accurate estimations. As a result, along with the justice, the sufferers get what they truly deserve to get from the incident.
In these pretexts to prove your mental anguish to the court, your lawyer may use the following documents, such as:
- Medical bills and record
- Your statement
- Doctors testimony
- Witnesses
- Pictures/videos of the incident and your wounds
- Psychiatric records
To Conclude
Emotional distress is super hard to deal with. And if that wasn’t enough for you to deal with, the extra burden and hassles of the court will increase your pain and suffering.
But, in this state, if you have the support of an experienced lawyer who knows how to handle this kind of case, you will certainly have no more worries.
With their expertise, the path will certainly seem much smoother as they are well-familiar with all the gaps in the law. From giving a tough fight to making sure you get your rightful compensation – they will work as a savior of the case from the start to the end. Thus you can better know how much you can sue for emotional distress in Canada.
FAQs
Check out the below queries regarding how much can you sue for emotional distress in Canada:
Can you sue for emotional damage in Canada?
Definitely, it’s possible to sue someone for emotional damage in Canada. You just need to have enough information and evidence to prove it in court.
How much can I sue for emotional distress in Canada?
There is just no accurate estimation regarding how much one can sue for suffering from mental pain and suffering. However, to give you a general idea, you can get around $350,000 as compensation for your distress in Canada. The amount tends to vary from one case to another, depending on the victim’s suffering and the extremity of the incident.
What can you sue for emotional distress?
If someone’s activities happen to cause you mental stress and trauma, like anxiety, depression, or paranoia – then you can file legal charges against them for causing you this pain. However, getting compensation for these damages can be pretty hard compared to the physical wounds.