Compensation for moral damage in case of an accident
Any accident or conflict on the road is always a moral experience, a stressful situation, a nervous environment. The condition of drivers, pedestrians or car passengers will be even worse if harm is caused to health. In almost any situation, the law allows you to recover moral damages after an accident if the victim proves the infliction of physical and mental suffering. Read when compensation for moral damage is allowed after an accident, how to correctly calculate the amount of compensation, and who to file claims against.
Payment of damages at the scene of an accident
For minor or minor injuries, it is possible to receive compensation at the scene of the accident. The guilty and injured parties negotiate the amount of payments, arriving at a common denominator. In such cases, you do not have to burden yourself with lengthy paperwork and going to court .
Of course, such a decision is a plus for both sides. An important point should be a receipt from the victim in receipt of the agreed amount , which indicates that the victim no longer has any claims against the culprit of the accident.
The execution of this receipt is carried out in free form and is a release of the guilty party from further payments that may be required by filing an application with the court.
When can you recover moral damages after an accident?
Claims for compensation for moral damages in case of an accident are not covered by the MTPL program. This is the main difficulty for filing claims, since they cannot be indicated in the notification of an accident or in the insurance company’s statement. To compensate for moral damage, it is necessary to take into account the norms of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, including the following rules:
- moral harm is the moral and physical suffering suffered by a citizen;
- these consequences can occur not only due to injuries or damage to health, but also due to a stressful situation, the characteristics of the body’s reaction to a nervous environment;
- The culprit of the accident is obliged to compensate for moral damage, i.e. a cause-and-effect relationship between his actions and the resulting suffering must be proven.
Note!
The claim for compensation for moral damage after an accident is not included in insurance cases.
Therefore, it will have to be presented directly to the guilty person, in the form of claims or a statement of claim. In some cases, simultaneous recovery of property and moral damage is allowed if the defendant is the culprit of the accident. Immediately after the accident, the parties draw up a notification of the accident, including with the involvement of traffic police inspectors. There are no clauses in this document about causing moral damage. This fact is also not reflected in the administrative protocols that are drawn up on facts of traffic violations. This means that special methods of proof must be used to confirm moral damages.
You can demand compensation for physical and moral suffering after an accident in the following cases:
- if the accident caused injuries and damage of varying severity (any harm to health always entails pain, which directly relates to moral damage);
- if a person died in an accident (in this case, moral suffering is caused to the relatives and friends of the deceased);
- if as a result of the collision the driver, passenger or pedestrian experienced fright, severe stress, or other emotional disturbance;
- if mental and nervous diseases have developed as a result of an accident.
Important!
The easiest way to prove moral damages is in the case of injuries and other damage to health. To do this, it is enough to obtain a certificate from a doctor, documents based on the results of a medical examination, and an ITU conclusion on the determination of disability. However, the final amount of compensation will be influenced by the type of injury and the nature of moral suffering, since the degree of pain depends on the type of injury.
A number of evidence that will be useful when filing a claim for moral damages can be obtained at the scene of the accident. Be sure to save video recordings (if available) and information about witnesses to the incident. Since the burden of proof in such cases rests with the plaintiff, it is the victim who must submit all documents and information to the court.
What is the essence of a pre-trial claim?
A pre-trial claim is a justified written demand of the injured person to the culprit of the road accident for compensation for damage caused. It is the primary stage of recovery of damages in case of an accident. Although you can skip this stage and immediately file a lawsuit.
Today, there are several common options for reimbursement of car repair costs after an accident. The perpetrator will be obliged to compensate for losses independently if the insurance policy does not fully cover the costs. Today, the maximum amount of payments from the insurance company is 400 thousand rubles. That is, if the material damage exceeds this amount, then the difference must be recovered from the person responsible for the accident.
In addition, if both vehicles were damaged, the insured amount is divided equally between the participants in the accident, and the defendant also undertakes to pay the missing funds for repairs. In case of absence or delay of the MTPL policy, the at-fault driver will cover all expenses independently.
There are several advantages of the option to settle the outcome of the incident before filing a lawsuit against the culprit of the accident:
- if the culprit of the accident is clearly known, and both participants understand this, then demanding compensation for accident damage through the court will only delay the process of obtaining funds;
- if the insurance company recognizes the accident as not an insured event, then the court is more likely to make the same decision;
- if the case does go to court, then you will have official confirmation that there were attempts to reach an agreement earlier.
It should be noted that current legislative norms in the field of insurance require owners of cars involved in road accidents to comply with the procedure for resolving disputes in the pre-trial process.
Attention! If the owner of the vehicle is not an individual, but a legal entity, then compensation for damage must be demanded from the company, not the driver.
How is compensation for moral damage sought?
The Civil Code of the Russian Federation does not provide precise instructions on the procedure for collecting moral damages. Therefore, the victim and the culprit of the accident can agree on a voluntary payment. The amount of compensation is determined by mutual agreement. To settle all disputes, you can draw up a receipt. It is advisable to indicate in it that the amount paid is compensation for moral damage caused, and the victim no longer has financial or other claims.
You can also send a written demand for compensation for moral damage to the culprit of the accident. Although the law does not require you to do this before going to court, this option can help avoid litigation. If the guilty person does not make contact or refuses to compensate for the harm, you need to file a lawsuit.
When filing a claim for moral damages after an accident, consider the following nuances:
- the law does not contain clear rules for calculating and proving moral damage, since suffering is evaluative and subjective;
- the claim must indicate the amount that the applicant considers sufficient to compensate for his suffering;
- the defendant has the right to present his objections to the claim and the amount of compensation, and the final decision will be made by the court.
Legal advice!
When planning to file a claim for moral damages, study the judicial practice in similar cases. Typically, approximately equal amounts are recovered for disputes of the same type. Therefore, it is unreasonable to demand compensation of hundreds of thousands of rubles if, under similar circumstances, the court recovered several thousand in favor of other plaintiffs. It is better to consult an experienced lawyer about these points in order to demand a reasonable amount in court.
The defendant in a claim will always be the person responsible for the accident, i.e. the person directly driving the vehicle. If you do not have information about the driver, but do have information about the car (for example, registration numbers are visible in a photo or video from the scene of an accident), you can file an application against the owner. According to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the owner of the car is responsible for all consequences of the accident unless he proves that he was not driving at the time of the harm.
Is it possible to recover compensation for moral damage in an accident from an insurance company?
Arbitrage practice
In practice, moral damages are recovered both separately and included in claims for compensation for property damage. Most often, the basis for refusal is the plaintiff’s justification of his experiences with material damage to the car and other property or the lack of evidence.
If the accident causes any damage to health, then compensation for damage, even minimal, should be counted on in any case. The approximate payment amounts are:
- for minor damage – from 2 to 20 thousand rubles;
- medium injuries – from 20 to 50 thousand rubles;
- severe injuries or disfiguring injuries - from 50 to 100 thousand rubles;
- for the death of a close relative – from 100 thousand to 1 million rubles.
In all other cases, it is difficult to obtain average statistics, because the courts, even with similar circumstances of the incident and stated requirements, assign completely different amounts of compensation.
Moral damage in an accident
How to calculate the amount of compensation for moral damage after an accident
When seeking compensation for moral damage, it is impossible to refer to any methods for calculating its amount. The legislation of the Russian Federation does not contain uniform rules for determining the degree of suffering. Obviously, moral damages from minor abrasions will be less than pain and suffering due to fractures and long-term treatment. All these nuances will be examined by the court when considering the claim.
The amount of compensation must be calculated by the plaintiff himself. To do this, you can refer to the following circumstances:
- severity of the accident and injuries sustained;
- duration of treatment, complexity of operations;
- temporary or complete loss of ability to work;
- age, other personal characteristics of the victim (for example, the courts will probably award a large amount if a pregnant woman lost her child after an accident).
In view of these peculiarities of recovery of moral damages, we recommend that you always seek help from lawyers. The support of a specialist will allow you to competently justify the amount of compensation and provide the necessary evidence.
Compensation for no damage
Many people believe that in the absence of any visible damage or physical injury, it will be impossible to receive compensation, but this is a mistake. Of course, determining the specific amount of moral damages in a minor accident is not an easy task. However, based on the legislation of the Russian Federation, the court has the right to make a decision on the plaintiff’s application.
Even in the absence of material damage, the injured party may demand compensation from the culprit . Due to the accident, the victim could be late for an interview or another important matter, which the court would certainly regard as moral damage.
The payments in this case are not huge, but are mandatory. The insurance company, as a rule, does not cover such expenses; for this reason, the person responsible for the accident tries in every possible way to avoid unexpected expenses , which complicates the process of obtaining legal compensation for moral damage caused.
ATTENTION! Clarifying all the details of the accident and correctly filing a claim simplifies the process of obtaining compensation for moral damage.
Amount of moral damage
Taking into account certain rules of law, justice and his own internal convictions, the judge can set the amount of compensation himself.
If minor damage was caused at the time of the accident (bruise, abrasions, etc.), the victim has the right to indicate the amount of compensation from 25 to 40 thousand rubles.
In the absence of obvious harm to health, the injured party may demand an amount not exceeding 10 thousand rubles.
In case of serious harm to health (fractures, hemorrhages, loss of limbs) at the time of an accident, the culprit must pay from 80 to 120 thousand rubles to the party recognized as the victim.
The perpetrator will pay from 400 to 1.5 million rubles to relatives whose loved one died as a result of a hit-and-run or an accident.
As judicial practice shows, if you have a correctly drawn up application and supporting documents, it is quite possible to receive compensation for a mental state, the loss of a loved one, or simply being late for an interview, resulting in moral damage .
What can the relatives of the deceased count on?
An accident that resulted in the death of a person belongs to the category of complex cases; the perpetrator in this case is obliged to pay moral damages to relatives even at the time of his detention . The basis for this is the conclusion that a person died at the time of the accident.
The injured party - relatives who have suffered disproportionate pain from the loss of a loved one, when filing a claim in court, can count on a guaranteed payment of moral damages . The following documents are necessary to resolve the issue:
- The conclusion of a forensic medical examination, which clearly identifies the cause of death, the circumstances and any injuries received as a result of the accident. The date and time of death must be indicated.
- A protocol that is drawn up in response to an accident.
- Videos, photographs, witness statements from the scene of the incident.
