What Is My Sexual Assault Case Worth

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Charles E. Gluckstein /
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What Is My Sexual Assault Case Worth

What Is My Sexual Assault Case Worth

What Are the Most Common Types of Compensation Available?

The purpose of compensating a survivor of sexual abuse is intended to return the survivor to the position in life they would have had "but for" the negligent or intentional actions or inaction of another person, organization, or institution. The compensation is both non-pecuniary and pecuniary.

Non-pecuniary compensation is to award the survivor a sum of money for the pain and suffering they endured. It can also involve an award for punitive damages which is a way to punish the wrongdoer for egregious conduct and/or to deter similar conduct in the future.

Pecuniary compensation is provided to recover actual and/or anticipated losses caused by the wrongdoer for income loss both in the past and the future, loss of opportunity in terms of education and employment, care costs both past and future for things like therapy and medication, and out of pocket expenses.

There are other types of categories of compensation such as loss of interdependent relationship that are also relevant to many sexual abuse cases.

Many factors go in to assessing how losses are determined and calculated.

Sexual abuse and sexual assaults are the most personal of all personal injuries. While each survivor's case is considered based on its own facts and merits, courts turn to case law when determining how to determine non-pecuniary compensation. It is determined based on the range established by the courts for similar cases. For pecuniary compensation, it is very fact driven and specific to each survivor in terms of what they have or have not been able to accomplish as a result of the abuse and the various needs they have.

For clients who pride themselves on having overcome the terrible impact of their trauma and succeeding in their personal and/or professional lives, they are often surprised to learn their success may limit their ability to collect pecuniary damages as they have minimized their losses in monetary terms. They feel they are being punished for their effort and determination to surmount the real barriers their abuse or assault put up in front of them.

What Is Justice Worth to You?

The monetary awards courts make in civil sexual assault cases are an imperfect method to acknowledge the true cost of sexual violence on the lives of survivors - but these sums of money are the only tool at the court's disposal. Pecuniary damages can sometimes approximate the real financial costs associated with sexual abuse or sexual assault, but putting a dollar amount on pain and suffering, emotional distress, or the lasting damage to a survivor's relationships is not a true indication or approximation of the value of what has actually been lost.

Many sexual assault cases never result in criminal charges - either based on the reluctance of survivors to engage the police, or the higher bar to successfully prosecute perpetrators in criminal court. As a result, a civil court case may be the sole time a survivor will formally ask our justice system to consider the harm done to them.

Whatever monetary damages are ultimately secured, reclaiming control of their lives, attaining a sense of closure, and confidently charting a course for their future is priceless. And, a survivor's lawsuit has a broader impact on wrongdoer organizations and institutions by impacting them financially which just may cause them to address the wrongs they caused or enabled.