Civ Pro: Fed Rule 8(a)3...Pleading for General Damages Forum

[HyeMart]

Would appreciate some help understanding.

You are asking for General Damages...you don't need to plead this in details.

what does that mean? you don't need to plead the amount? the particular injury (e.g. wrist)?

[HyeMart]

and to piggy back, if you are pleading special damages..does the requirement for detail means $ amount?

[tlstlstls73]

Wrong forum.

[NoleinNY]

Has your professor explained what the difference between General and Special Damages are?

[HyeMart]

just how special differs from general...no specifics into what you need to do

[NoleinNY]

Here's a hypo to illustrate.

Paul Pianist goes to the hospital and the nurse spills a box of scalpels on his hand. It costs 100k for the multiple surgeries to repair his hands, and he goes through a ton of pain. While his hand works, he can't play piano, his career, anymore. He was making 200k a year.

The general damages would be the 100k to fix his hands plus pain and suffering (here in CA, the cap for general damages in Med Mal is 250k).

The special damages would be the lost earnings over his career (say, 20 more years = $4,000,000).

Since you don't need to plead details in general damages, you would be like "P suffered painful injury to his hand requiring surgery, with out of pocket costs of 100k... Immense pain blah blah.."

For special damages you would have to plead like "As a result of the injury, P is no longer able to continue his career as a concert Pianist, where he made 200k a year and could have played for 20 more...."

Obviously you would be more artful than that, but you get the idea.

[jess]

.

[HyeMart]

thanks, very helpful