By: Paul Vames, Oregon Personal Injury Attorney
They’re known by several different names. Some jurisdictions refer to them as “general” damages. Some legal academic experts refer to them as “hedonic” damages. Here in Oregon, we most often call them “non-economic” damages (which can be a bit confusing for reasons I’ll discuss below).
What am I talking about? I’m talking about the concept of compensating injury victims for losses which do not necessarily involve an outlay of dollars, but which nonetheless are actual losses occasioned by the injury.
Perhaps an example will make the discussion more easily understood. Several years ago I represented an 18-year-old young lady who was struck by a minivan while legally crossing an arterial street within a residential neighborhood in Hillsboro. The young woman was within a crosswalk as “crosswalk” is defined on the Oregon Vehicle Code.