Facial scarring can be a traumatic injury. A scar on your face can feel more serious because it may be highly visible. If you received a facial scar in an accident someone else caused through careless or reckless behavior, you may be entitled to sue the at-fault parties for compensation.
In many cases, facial scars are worth more than other scars and might even be worth more than some more traumatic injuries. Facial scarring may impact a person’s self-worth or have real consequences for their job and personal relationships. You should talk to a lawyer immediately if you received facial scars in an accident.
Call our Baltimore personal injury lawyers at Rice Law for a free, private case review by dialing (410) 694-7291.
Can You Claim Damages for a Facial Scar in Maryland?
In a personal injury lawsuit, such as for car accident injuries, defective product injuries, burn injuries, or dog bites, you can sue the at-fault party for damages. The damages you claim in your case depend on what harms and costs you faced because of the accident.
In cases of facial scarring, damages may encompass high economic costs in addition to non-economic claims for pain, distress, and various other personal experiences.
Calculating Economic Damages for Facial Scarring
“Economic” damages pay you back for the financial losses you incur because of the accident. This includes things like medical bills, lost wages, and follow-up appointments. Injuries that cause facial scars are often expensive to treat and come with various related costs. For example, a very serious facial injury might require prosthetics to cover the scar, which may be expensive.
We can calculate these costs by reviewing all bills and receipts that stem from the accident. If there are future costs involved, we can predict what they will cost going forward.
Calculating Non-Economic Damages for Facial Scarring
Non-economic damages account for intangible harms, such as embarrassment, disfigurement, pain, and suffering. Facial scars often lead to significant pain and suffering, both physically and psychologically. The scars may be obvious and change the appearance of your face, which is quite distressing. This means these damages are often high, especially when scarring is significant and permanent.
We can use a few calculation methods, discussed below.
The Costs of Specialist Appointments for Facial Scarring
Treating a wound or injury to the face might require specialized care. In most cases where a victim has an injury in a highly visible place on their body, plastic surgeons will be called in to give stitches and other treatments so that the injury does not have as much scarring to begin with.
Because plastic surgeons are specialists, this care may cost more, even though other doctors may be able to use similar techniques.
What if Medical Malpractice Occurs During Treatment for Facial Scarring?
If the care that you receive is not up to the standard of care and you suffer from medical mistakes and malpractice, you might also be entitled to claim damages for this harm.
The original party who injured you might be responsible for these damages.
Lost Wages from Facial Scar Injuries
Any injury might require time off work to allow the injury to heal and to give you time to get the medical treatment you need. However, facial scars can be a bigger problem.
You may be unable to perform certain job tasks while your facial injuries heal. With serious wounds, you may need to be on light-duty work or reduced wages for weeks or months, resulting in additional lost wages, even if you do not get paid based on your physical appearance like an actor or model might.
If the injuries that cause facial scarring affect your eyes, you might be unable to work for the foreseeable future, and you may be entitled to even more damages if your vision is damaged.
What if Your Appearance is Tied to Your Work?
For people in certain industries, their face and physical appearance might be part of their work. This means that scarring and disfigurement injuries could reduce their income going forward.
Models, actors, and public figures could face a greater challenge seeking employment if they have severe or obvious facial scars. In some cases, this could affect your livelihood, even outside of these fields.
Damages for Physical Pain and Discomfort Related to Facial Scarring
With scar tissue, you often lose feeling in that area of skin. However, the area around it might be tender and painful. Moreover, the area where the injury is located could face decreased mobility.
For a facial scar, this could make it difficult or painful to move your mouth or open and close your eyes – things you will do daily. Burn scars can be especially painful and cause decreased facial mobility. Your ability to smile, frown, or otherwise express emotion may be hindered, which can lead to further pain and suffering.
Damages for Emotional Distress Related to Facial Scar Injuries
The emotional suffering of a scar can be severe. For facial scars in particular, the damages for mental and emotional suffering are often the highest area of damages.
Having a scar in a visible location or burns that cover your face can be a constant reminder of the accident and the injury, bringing up painful thoughts and feelings when you see yourself in the mirror.
How other people treat you and react to the scar can also cause suffering and emotional distress. This can often result in higher damages for young people, unmarried people, and women, who are traditionally seen to face a greater challenge from facial scars.
Testimony Supporting Claims for Damages for Facial Scarring
To prove pain and suffering, you can testify to the jury about how the scar affects your life and your enjoyment of it. For some people, a facial scar might come with a reluctance to see friends or family or an instinct to hide the scar. For others, it may make activities like performing or socializing less enjoyable.
Using Medical Information to Prove Claims of Facial Scarring
While your scars may be visible to a jury, we may need medical evidence to establish more details about the injury. Your medical records may be used to prove how the injury occurred, what kind of pain you experienced, and what your scarring may look like in the future.
If we present your medical records as evidence, we will likely need a medical expert who can review them and explain them in court. They may also explain whether treatment options exist to make the scar less visible and how much it costs.
What Does Your Facial Scar Look Like?
A crucial factor in your claims is the scar’s overall appearance. Is it a large scar that covers a significant portion of your face, or is it small and only visible from certain angles? Larger, more visible, or more significant scars should warrant larger settlements.
Certain scars may be more disfiguring. For example, a scar that appears as a clean, straight line may be less distressing than one that is jagged, discolored, and deeper into the skin. In such cases, we should demand more compensation.
Jury Observations of Your Facial Scarring Injuries
Courts will also look at who you are and how they think the scar will affect your life. In many situations, this might seem unfair, but if you fall into some of the following categories, a jury might award you additional damages because they see your scar as objectively “worse.”
It is important that you are present in the courtroom and allow the jury to see your scars. This may be difficult, but it is a necessary part of your claims.
How Gender, Age, and Marital Status May Affect Claims for Damages
First, juries often award women higher damages for facial scars than men. Scars can affect traditional notions of beauty, and society typically sees scars on women as “worse” than scars on men.
Similarly, age might be a factor. As scars are typically permanent, young people will have to live with the scar longer than older people.
Lastly, juries often award higher damages to unmarried people. The logic here is that it might be more difficult to make friends or find a spouse if you have a serious facial scar, so single people will often face additional hurdles.
How the Permanence of Facial Scars Can Affect Damage Calculations
Not all scars are permanent. Some scarring may reduce over time and become less visible, though this is more common with minor scarring. Severe burns or similar scars are usually permanent and do not become less visible.
These factors will influence your claims for damages. We must present evidence that your facial scarring is permanent and will remain with you forever. Permanent scarring should warrant larger settlements than temporary injuries.
Calculation Methods for Pain and Suffering
There are generally two predominant methods for calculating damages for pain and suffering, both based on your general observations about the severity of the injury.
Multiplier Method
Choosing a number from 1.5 to 5, we can say how “severe” the injury is, on the whole. Then we multiply that number by your total economic damages to arrive at a value for non-economic damages.
Per Diem Method
Alternatively, we can choose a per-day cost for your pain and suffering, based on your income and the severity of the injury. Then, we claim damages for each day you face pain and suffering.
Can You Get Damages Just for Facial Scarring?
Scarring stems from an injury, and you can always seek damages for any physical injury and its effects. The more these injuries cost in medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering, the more serious your injury is.
Facial scars often result in higher damages for pain and suffering. They harm your appearance, and they are often worth damages at some level, even if the injury itself was not too severe or would not be considered severe somewhere else on your body.
How Do You Know if a Settlement is Good Enough?
Always work with our Maryland personal injury lawyers to review your case. You may not have a good idea of what your case looks like, objectively, given how personal it is to you. Plus, insurance companies and defendants often try to tell you that you do not have a case or that your case is worth less than you might think, and this is often wrong.
Work with us to negotiate a fair settlement and to review any settlement offers before you accept them.
What if Settlements Are Too Low?
You can always say no to a settlement offer. Our lawyers can go back and negotiate for higher damages by providing more proof of fault and injuries and trying to convince the insurance company that they will lose at trial.
If they still refuse, we can take them to court. A trial will be more expensive for them, so it is often in their best interest to stop fighting and settle earlier rather than going all the way to trial and losing there.
When Should You Sue for Facial Scar Injuries?
Plaintiffs suing for facial scars or other personal injuries have only 3 years from the date of the injury to file their claims in court. It may take time to fully prepare your case and understand the nature of your injuries, so it is important to contact a lawyer sooner rather than later.
Depending on your circumstances, it may be beneficial to wait for the scar to fully recover so we know what it looks like. This might give us a better idea of how permanent the injury is and how it will affect your life moving forward.
Call Our Maryland Facial Scar Injury Lawyer
If you were involved in an accident and received a serious facial scar, call Rice Law today for a free legal review at (410) 694-7291.