Disfigurement

What counts as disfigurement?

Disfigurement is a lasting change to appearance resulting from injury. It covers scarring, burn contracture, surgical alteration, tissue loss and asymmetry following reconstruction.

It is distinct from functional impairment. Someone may recover full use of a limb and still carry permanent visible change from the injury or its treatment.

New Jersey recognizes significant disfigurement and significant scarring as categories satisfying the verbal threshold, which matters for auto claims.

Surgical scars from treatment count as well, since they would not exist without the injury.

It is one of the categories most often undervalued in early settlement discussions, because it is easy to describe and hard to quantify.

What affects how it is valued?

Several factors bear on the significance of visible change.

Juries respond to visible evidence, so how the record is assembled matters as much as the findings.

• Location, with facial and hand disfigurement weighted most heavily
• Size, texture, colour contrast and whether the area is normally covered
• Permanence and whether revision surgery can improve it
• The person's age, since a young person carries it for far longer
• Occupational relevance where appearance bears on the work
• Psychological consequences including avoidance and social withdrawal

How is it documented?

Photographically and over time. A sequence showing the injury, the healing process and the settled appearance is considerably more effective than a single image.

Photographs should be taken in consistent lighting and from consistent angles, since scarring appears very differently under different conditions.

A plastic surgeon's opinion on permanence and on whether revision would help establishes whether the current appearance is the final one.

What is often underweighted?

The psychological dimension. Visible disfigurement frequently produces anxiety, avoidance of social situations and changes in how a person presents themselves.

Early offers tend to price scarring by size and location alone, without accounting for what it does to daily life.

Testimony from the person and from those close to them about specific changed behaviours is what converts an abstract category into a real loss.

Time also matters. Scarring settles over a year or more, so valuing it too early risks assessing an appearance that will change.

Common questions

Do surgical scars count?

Yes. Scars from treatment necessitated by the injury are part of the claim, since they would not exist otherwise.

What if revision surgery could improve the scar?

That is factored in, along with its cost, risk and likely result. Nobody is obliged to undergo further surgery to reduce a defendant's exposure.

Does disfigurement meet the verbal threshold?

Significant disfigurement or significant scarring is one of the categories New Jersey recognizes. Whether a specific scar qualifies is assessed on the facts.