Pain and Suffering in Wisconsin

And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; 20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. Leviticus 24: 19.

Nowadays, instead of “eye for an eye,” people use the civil justice system to get justice when someone wrongfully hurts them. Just as a child should make up for breaking a neighbor’s window with a baseball by apologizing and paying for a replacement window, an adult who causes injury to another should make up for it by apologizing and paying money to make up for the harm.

Wisconsin law states that when a jury writes down an amount of money on a verdict for pain and suffering, the answer should be the amount of money that will fairly and reasonably compensate plaintiff for the pain, suffering, disability, disfigurement that he/she has suffered. Pain, suffering, disability includes physical pain, humiliation, worry, and distress. The jury is told to consider to what extent the injuries impaired the person’s ability to enjoy normal activities, pleasures and benefits of life. See Wisconsin Civil Jury instruction 1766.

Things to consider. Almost all adult human beings in the U.S. pay a whole lot of money to insurance companies so that if they hurt someone, hopefully the insurance company takes some of that huge pool of money and gives some to the person who was hurt. This is why we pay for insurance.

Most people have not been seriously hurt by someone who was driving drunk, distracted, texting, speeding etc. Because most people have not been seriously hurt due to someone else’s unreasonable and unsafe choices, it is easy for those people to claim no one should get money for getting hurt.

When a person gets hurt by someone who chose to speed or look at their phone while driving or drive drunk etc. and the injured person ends up needing a catheter, painful and scary surgeries, fears death, can’t walk the same, can’t have sex with their spouse…….that person may want the person who caused all of this to make up for what happened. Because we no longer have eye for an eye, instead of hurting the person back, the civil justice system allows the injured person to explain what happened to a group of 12 unbiased people who don’t know anyone or each other. These 12 people then get to determine whether the person who was hurt should get no money, a small amount, a medium amount, or a large amount. The jury’s job is to make the injured person whole for what happened to them. The jury is not allowed to consider sympathy for the injured person and is not allowed to consider resentment for the person who caused the harm.