Loss of Enjoyment of Life After an Injury

An injury may affect a person’s life outside the workplace and outside the doctor’s office. The inability to travel comfortably, play a sport, care for family, attend social events, or perform familiar routines can be a central part of the loss.

The focus is on real changes

Loss of enjoyment is not an abstract category. It concerns the activities and relationships that made up a person’s ordinary life before the injury, and the limits that exist afterward. A useful account is concrete: what did the person regularly do, what changed, and what treatment or limitation explains the change?

Family members, friends, co-workers, and medical providers may each have relevant observations. The best evidence does not exaggerate. It provides a clear picture of a life that has become smaller, more difficult, or less independent because of the injury.

It is distinct from economic loss

Lost income can often be documented through pay records and employment evidence. Loss of enjoyment concerns a different form of harm. Both may be important, and neither should be treated as a substitute for the other.