ABA Family Legal Guide

Personal Injury

The Basics of Personal Injury Law

Will the government punish the person who caused my injury?

No. Governmental punishment comes from criminal cases, not civil cases. Defendants in civil actions for personal injury do not receive jail terms or stiff fines as punishment. Those are criminal sentences, and personal injury cases are civil disputes.

However, there is a form of punishment under personal injury law. In certain rare kinds of cases, juries and courts can award punitive damages. The civil justice system uses punitive damages to punish defendants who have behaved maliciously, intentionally, or recklessly. Courts also hope that ordering the payment of punitive damages will deter defendants from engaging in the same kind of harmful behavior in the future. Note that unlike fines, which go to the government, punitive damages are paid to the plaintiff.