Civil Damages

You’ve probably seen all the ads on TV with lawyers asking if you’ve been exposed to asbestos or injured in a car accident. Or we read about big medical malpractice cases where the injured patient gets millions of dollars. Those payments are the civil damages.

The term doesn't apply to two English gentlemen getting into a fight ("sorry about the bloody nose old man, but those things you said about Pitt the Elder deserved a good thrashing.") It refers to the money paid out in a civil verdict (civil being opposed to criminal, where the verdict might come with a jail sentence...civil verdicts are only about money).

There are three kinds of civil damages. General damages are for things like pain and suffering...they are meant to reimburse the injured party for what happened to them. Meanwhile, punitive damages are paid as a result of negligence...the goal is just to punish the party that caused the damages. And special damages are awarded to reimburse the injured party for medical bills, loss of income, and legal costs if the attorney is not just taking a percentage of the winnings.

All three can be awarded to the “plaintiff,” the person bringing the case to court, and paid for by the “defendant,” the person being sued.

The amount of civil damages can be decided by a jury or judge for just about anything ranging from an injury in a car accident, a family member killed in a plane crash, medical malpractice, or a Duck Boat sinking in a lake (it happens).

Perhaps one of the most famous civil damages case was against O.J. Simpson in 1997. A jury acquitted him of murdering his wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman in a criminal court. So the Brown and Goldman families brought a civil suit of wrongful death against him. The families won $33.5 million in general and punitive damages, but only a small amount of that has ever been paid.