New York divides compensation into two categories. Economic damages reimburse money you lost or will spend. Non-economic damages compensate for the human consequences that no invoice captures. Both are recoverable in a personal injury case, but they are proven in completely different ways, and a 2026 change to state law affects the second category in certain motor vehicle claims.
Economic Damages: The Documented Losses
Economic damages, sometimes called special damages, cover measurable financial harm.
Medical expenses include emergency treatment, hospitalization, surgery, imaging, medication, physical therapy, assistive equipment, and home modifications. Future medical costs are recoverable when supported by medical testimony about what your care will require over a lifetime.
Lost income covers wages missed during recovery. When an injury permanently changes what you can do for a living, the claim extends to lost earning capacity, which is the difference between what you would have earned and what you now can. Proving it typically involves vocational and economic analysis, not just pay stubs.
Out-of-pocket costs include transportation to treatment, household help you now need, and property damage.
Life care costs in catastrophic cases can dwarf everything else. A spinal cord injury requiring attendant care and equipment replacement over decades produces a number built by professionals, not estimated. See our page on catastrophic injuries.
Non-Economic Damages: The Human Losses
Non-economic damages compensate for pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, disfigurement, and the disruption of ordinary daily living. A spouse may separately recover for loss of consortium.
There is no formula. A jury assigns a number based on the severity and permanence of the injury, its effect on your specific life, and how credibly that effect is documented. Our guide to how pain and suffering is calculated in New York explains what drives the figure and, in motor vehicle cases, the threshold you must clear before you can recover in this category at all.
Are There Caps in New York?
For most cases, no. New York does not impose a general cap on either economic or non-economic damages. Unlike many states, it does not cap medical malpractice awards. A jury determines the amount, subject to judicial review for awards that deviate materially from reasonable compensation.
There is now one narrow exception. Under Insurance Law § 5104(d), added by Part EE of Chapter 58 of the Laws of 2026, a $100,000 cap applies to non-economic damages in a serious injury action brought by an at-fault injured person who was operating an uninsured vehicle they were responsible for insuring, operating while impaired and convicted of that offense, or operating during the commission of a felony and convicted of it. The New York State Department of Financial Services set out the details in Insurance Circular Letter No. 3 (2026). The cap does not apply to actions for injuries resulting in death, and it applies only to actions commenced on or after May 26, 2026.
For everyone outside those specific circumstances, no cap applies.
Two Rules That Affect What You Actually Take Home
The collateral source rule. Under CPLR § 4545, a court may reduce an award by amounts that have been or will be replaced from certain other sources, such as health insurance, when the defendant proves the offset with reasonable certainty. This can meaningfully change the net figure and is one reason the gross verdict number is rarely what a claimant receives.
Structured judgments. For large future damages awards, CPLR Article 50-A and 50-B require portions to be paid over time rather than in a lump sum. This matters most in catastrophic injury and malpractice cases.
Liens also come off the top. Health insurers, Medicare, Medicaid, and No-Fault carriers may all assert reimbursement rights, and negotiating them down is part of the work a lawyer does after settlement.
Damages in Wrongful Death Cases
New York’s wrongful death statute is narrower than most people expect. Under EPTL § 5-4.3, damages are limited to pecuniary injuries suffered by the distributees, along with medical and funeral expenses. Grief and emotional loss are not compensable, a limitation the Legislature has repeatedly considered changing.
A separate survival claim can recover for the decedent’s conscious pain and suffering between injury and death. Our New York wrongful death attorney page explains how the two claims work together.
What Actually Moves the Number
Fault allocation, medical documentation, and permanence do most of the work. Your own share of responsibility reduces recovery proportionally and, in covered motor vehicle cases, can now bar it entirely under the amended comparative fault rule. Available insurance sets a practical ceiling, which is why identifying every party covered in our liability guide matters so much. And the proof described in what evidence you need determines whether a jury believes the numbers you present.
Talk to a New York Personal Injury Attorney
Valuing a case correctly requires knowing what future care will cost, what liens will consume, and what juries in your county actually award. Buttafuoco & Associates has been calculating these figures for injured New Yorkers since 1981, and our founder holds the third highest recorded personal injury settlement in New York State history. Whether you need a Rochester personal injury lawyer or help elsewhere in the state, contact us for a free case review. You owe no attorney’s fee unless we recover for you.