General damages

What are general damages?

General damages are losses the law presumes flow naturally from the wrong itself, without requiring the plaintiff to itemize them in advance.

The distinction from special damages is historical. Some losses were treated as the ordinary and expected consequence of an injury, so pleading them specifically was unnecessary.

In modern practice the category corresponds closely to non-economic damages, and the terms are used interchangeably.

Where they differ is usage. General damages appears in pleadings and older authority, while non-economic damages appears in valuation and statutory language.

The two vocabularies coexist, which is why the same losses appear under different labels in different documents.

What does the category cover?

These are the losses no receipt can document.

None of these can be established by a receipt.

• Pain and suffering, both physical and emotional
• Loss of enjoyment of activities and interests
• Permanent disfigurement and scarring
• Loss of independence in daily life
• Emotional distress and anxiety
• Loss of consortium claimed by a spouse

Where does the distinction come from?

It descends from common law pleading, where a plaintiff had to state their case with precision or risk dismissal. Losses the law regarded as the natural result of a wrong needed no such statement.

A broken arm obviously hurts, so pain did not require pleading. The cost of a particular surgeon did, because nothing about the injury implied that figure.

That division survives in the vocabulary long after the strict pleading rules that produced it were relaxed.

It explains why the same losses carry two names depending on whether you are reading a complaint or a settlement statement.

Which term should you expect to see?

In a complaint, general damages. Pleadings retain the older vocabulary because that is the language the forms and the case law use.

In negotiation and in statute, non-economic damages. New Jersey's threshold provisions and damages statutes use the modern terminology.

Neither term changes what is recoverable. Encountering both in documents about the same claim is normal rather than a sign of inconsistency.

What does change recovery is whether a threshold applies, which is determined by the type of claim and the policy in effect rather than by the label used.

Common questions

Are general damages the same as non-economic damages?

In practice the categories correspond closely. General damages is the older pleading term while non-economic damages appears in valuation and statute.

Why do I see both terms in my paperwork?

Pleadings use the older common law vocabulary while statutes and settlement documents use the modern one. Both describe the same losses.

Is there a cap in New Jersey?

No general cap applies in ordinary negligence cases, though threshold restrictions can bar these damages in auto and public entity claims.