What are non-economic damages?

Non-economic damages are the hurt feelings, sadness, and annoyance you get when someone else does something bad to you, not just the money you lose.

Imagine you have your favorite toy, a shiny red ball. One day, your brother takes it without asking and throws it into the bushes. You feel really upset because now you can’t play with it anymore. That feeling of being sad or angry is like non-economic damages, they’re not about how much money you lost (which would be like if the ball was broken), but about how you felt inside.

Sometimes, people get hurt so badly that their feelings matter just as much as the actual harm. Like if your friend broke your leg and laughed at you, even though they fixed it later, you might still feel upset for a long time because of how they acted.

These bad feelings can be hard to describe in words or numbers, but they're real, just like how you know when something makes you happy or sad.