Medical Documentation to Support Your Non-Economic Pain and Suffering Damages
For any lawsuit that includes claims of emotional or physical damage, it is common, and often necessary to produce supporting medical documentation. Alleging injury due to an employer’s conduct can result in compensatory damages, meaning emotional distress, pain and suffering, and mental anguish, as well as out of pocket costs for medical, psychological, or physical treatments.
If a company anticipates the possibility of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, they will want to make sure that an employee’s claims of mental or physical damages, including pain and suffering are substantiated, and will do so by requesting your medical records. The process begins by signing an authorization form for your medical records to be retrieved from providers. From there, you can anticipate that as a deposition witness, you will be questioned regarding the medical records and asked to explain why you suffered damages for the company’s adverse action against you. Providing this medical documentation is critical to establishing that you suffered severe emotional distress.
For compensatory damage, it benefits an employee to have evidence of both “actual injury, which requires a degree of specificity; and may be supported by corroborating testimony or medical or psychological evidence” as well as “a causal relationship between the discriminatory conduct and the emotional harm”. By providing medical documentation to your attorney, you are giving them the ability to establish these evidentiary requirements.
At Hurwitz Law PLLC, we understand that the idea of providing sensitive medical information is very scary for privacy reasons, but the medical records provided during the court of litigation will be kept confidential. What you need to understand is that access to medical records is not meant to invade your privacy, but instead establish that the injuries you suffered can be corroborated by your medical history.
Therefore, if you suffered a workplace injury and are dealing with physical and/or mental health issues, it is important to share the injury concerns with your medical providers and make sure that there is a medical history that you can later use to support your damages claim.
At Hurwitz Law, we treat medical documentation with the utmost discretion and have a proven track record of representing clients who have suffered from unlawful actions in the workplace, including discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. If you have or are currently experiencing mental or physical distress due to your work, please email [email protected]. We can help!