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Colorado Guide 19 · VictimsGuide.com
Crash Damages
A Colorado crash claim is not valued by multiplying medical bills or by stopping at the visible insurance limit. Build damages category by category: economic loss, noneconomic loss, physical impairment or disfigurement, property loss, future consequences, and every other injury actually caused by the crash.
Colorado personal-injury damages are best built in three separate ledgers
Current Colorado Civil Jury Instruction 6:1 separates adult personal-injury damages into noneconomic losses, economic losses, and—when supported by the evidence—a separate category for physical impairment or disfigurement.
Economic loss
Medical expense, wage loss, future earning-capacity damage and other measurable financial loss caused by the crash.
Noneconomic loss
Pain, suffering, inconvenience, emotional stress, impaired quality of life and other supported noneconomic harm.
Physical impairment / disfigurement
A separately stated Colorado damage category when the evidence supports functional impairment or disfigurement.
Medical damages require a medical chronology and a money chronology
A medical bill is one piece of proof. A serious damages file connects the crash to the symptoms, diagnoses, treatment, restrictions and future needs—and separately tracks what was billed, paid, adjusted, owed, financed, liened or claimed for reimbursement.
How did the body experience the collision?
What began at scene, later that day and afterward?
What conditions were identified and by whom?
What care was reasonable, necessary and actually provided?
Recovery, permanence, impairment and future care.
| Field | What to preserve | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Records | EMS, ED, imaging, specialists, therapy, surgery, follow-up | Diagnosis, causation, treatment sequence and restrictions. |
| Gross charges | Provider itemized bills | Separate the provider's stated charges from every payment/adjustment issue. |
| Paid amounts | Health plan, MedPay, patient and other payments | Needed for reconciliation, but admissibility is governed by Colorado collateral-source law. |
| Adjustments | Contract write-offs and provider adjustments | Do not confuse accounting entries with the tort measure without legal analysis. |
| Balances | Amounts the patient still owes | Settlement planning and collection exposure. |
| Liens / reimbursement | Plan claims, Medicare/Medicaid, workers' compensation, provider liens | Net-recovery analysis; not automatically the same as damages. |
Collateral-source analysis is not “billed versus paid” arithmetic
Colorado uses both a common-law evidentiary collateral-source rule and a statutory post-verdict framework. The source of the payment, the contract creating the benefit, and the purpose for which evidence is offered all matter.
What the jury hears
Crossgrove holds that insurer-paid amounts are excluded in a qualifying collateral-source case even when offered to argue reasonable value.
What the court subtracts
Section 13-21-111.6 provides a post-verdict reduction framework, subject to its contractual-benefit exception.
Gardenswartz
Contractually purchased benefits can fall within the statutory exception rather than automatically reducing the verdict.
Future damages require probability and a defensible foundation
Colorado CJI 6:1 allows damages the plaintiff probably will sustain in the future. Future care or loss should therefore be tied to medical and vocational evidence rather than to a list of everything that might someday happen.
Expected care
Identify treatment reasonably expected to occur, why it is needed, anticipated frequency/duration and defensible cost evidence.
Work and services
Build future earning-capacity or replacement-service losses from restrictions, work history, probable duration and appropriate economic evidence.
Lost wages and diminished earning capacity are different questions
| Category | Core question | Typical proof |
|---|---|---|
| Past wage loss | What income was actually lost before valuation/trial? | Payroll, employer confirmation, tax records, leave records, medical restrictions. |
| Future wage loss | What earnings probably will be lost for a defined future period? | Restrictions, treatment plan, employer evidence, duration proof. |
| Earning capacity | Has the person's ability to earn money been damaged even if current wages resumed? | Occupation, skills, education, restrictions, vocational evidence, labor-market proof. |
| Self-employment | What portion is personal earning loss versus business fluctuation? | Returns, books, contracts, comparable periods, accountant/economic foundation. |
Noneconomic damages measure human loss that does not arrive with an invoice
Colorado's current adult personal-injury instruction identifies pain and suffering, inconvenience, emotional stress and impairment of quality of life as noneconomic losses.
Pain and suffering
Intensity, duration, frequency, treatment burden and prognosis.
Inconvenience
Transportation, appointments, sleep disruption, dependency and altered routines.
Emotional stress
Fear, distress and emotional consequences supported by the record.
Quality of life
Activities, recreation, family roles and ordinary life changed by injury.
Past and future
Document both what has already been endured and what probably remains.
Specificity beats adjectives
Concrete before/after examples are usually more useful than repeating “severe pain.”
Physical impairment and disfigurement deserve their own evidence file
Colorado deliberately separates impairment/disfigurement from ordinary noneconomic and economic loss. Build this category from what the body can no longer do, how it must do things differently, and what permanent visible changes remain.
- Range-of-motion or strength loss.
- Walking, standing, sitting or lifting restrictions.
- Neurologic or sensory deficits.
- Permanent joint, spine or extremity limitations.
- Loss of fine-motor ability.
- Scarring or visible anatomical change.
- Assistive devices or accommodations.
- Changed ability to perform household tasks.
- Changed ability to participate in recreation.
- Objective testing and treating-provider findings.
- Photographs showing disfigurement over time.
- Specific before/after functional comparisons.
Colorado vehicle damage includes more than the body-shop invoice
The current Colorado property-damage instructions separately address market-value loss, repair cost, residual diminished value and loss of use.
| Issue | Colorado measure | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Total / substantial destruction | Difference between market value immediately before and immediately after the occurrence. | Condition, mileage, options, comparable vehicles, market evidence. |
| Repairable damage | Reasonable repair cost plus decrease in market value after repair, subject to the pre-loss value ceiling. | Estimate, final repair invoice, repair quality, pre/post market valuation. |
| Diminished value | Residual decrease in market value after repair may be part of the repair measure. | Competent market comparison rather than a percentage pulled from a generic formula. |
| Loss of use | Reasonable compensation during the time reasonably required for repair. | Comparable rental value, replacement cost or qualifying lost-profit evidence. |
| Personal property inside vehicle | Analyze each item under the applicable personal-property measure. | Photos, receipts, age, condition and market evidence. |
Failure to mitigate is not permission to blame the injured person for everything
CJI 5:2 treats failure to mitigate as an affirmative defense. The defendant must prove the unreasonable failure to take a reasonable step and the additional damages caused by that failure.
Not perfection
The question is whether reasonable steps were taken under the circumstances, not whether recovery followed an ideal medical script.
Additional loss
The defense must connect the alleged failure to an identifiable amount or category of avoidable additional damage.
Defendant's affirmative defense
The party asserting mitigation bears the burden under the Colorado instruction framework.
Interest and exemplary damages sit outside the basic compensatory-damages ledger
Personal-injury interest
Colorado has a statutory prejudgment-interest framework for qualifying personal-injury tort actions, historically using a 9% rate subject to the statute's accrual and appeal provisions.
Exemplary damages
Exemplary damages require the statutory showing such as fraud, malice or willful and wanton conduct and follow special pleading/proof procedures. Ordinary negligence is not enough.
Damages, payments and net recovery require separate ledgers
Tort damages
What loss did the crash legally cause?
Insurance / benefits paid
Who paid medical or other benefits, and under what contract or program?
Outstanding balances
What providers or creditors still claim payment?
Liens / reimbursement
Who claims a legal right against settlement proceeds?
Available coverage
Which liability, umbrella/excess, UM/UIM or other policies can fund recovery?
Net recovery
What remains after validated obligations, fees/costs and settlement allocations are reconciled?
Crash-damages workflow
Colorado damages authority map
Paid medical amounts / collateral-source evidence
Holds that the pre-verdict collateral-source rule excludes insurer-paid amounts even when offered to prove reasonable value of medical services.
Colorado Supreme CourtContractual collateral-source benefits
Addresses § 13-21-111.6 and the contract exception where medical benefits arise from coverage purchased for the injured person.
Colorado Supreme CourtMedical financing and collateral sources
Examines medical-finance arrangements and whether discounted purchase amounts operate as collateral-source benefits.
Colorado Supreme CourtProperty damage / market value
Listed by the current CJI as authority supporting the before-and-after market-value measure for personal property.
Colorado Supreme CourtRepair measure
Supports use of repair-based property measures where repair is feasible or more effectively compensates the loss.
Colorado Supreme CourtRepair + residual diminished value
Supports recovery of reasonable repair cost together with remaining decrease in market value after repair.
Published Colorado Court of AppealsFailure to mitigate
Current CJI 5:2 cites Fair for the affirmative-defense framework and the reasonable-steps standard.
Colorado Supreme CourtPersonal-injury interest
Explains the compensatory purpose of statutory interest under § 13-21-101.
Colorado Supreme CourtReasonable mitigation limits
Current CJI 5:2 notes that otherwise recommended treatment contraindicated during pregnancy or nursing does not create a duty to terminate pregnancy or forgo nursing.
Published Colorado Court of AppealsPrimary authority and current instruction map
VictimsGuide resources supporting Guide 19
Frequently asked questions
Does Colorado use a simple multiplier of medical bills to value pain and suffering?
No. Colorado's damages instructions identify separate categories of actual loss. A medical-bill multiplier is not the legal measure of noneconomic damages.
Are physical impairment damages subject to the ordinary noneconomic cap?
Section 13-21-102.5 expressly provides that its limitation does not limit compensatory damages for physical impairment or disfigurement. The current CJI separates that category on the verdict form when supported by the evidence.
What is Colorado's current ordinary noneconomic cap?
For the post-January 1, 2025 nonmedical tort framework created by HB24-1472, the statutory amount is $1.5 million, with inflation adjustments scheduled to begin in 2028. Accrual, filing-date transition language and special statutory regimes must still be checked.
Can the defense tell the jury what health insurance actually paid my providers?
Not automatically. Crossgrove applies Colorado's pre-verdict collateral-source rule to exclude insurer-paid amounts in qualifying circumstances. The source and purpose of the evidence must be analyzed under current Colorado law.
Can I recover the full billed medical amount?
The answer depends on causation, reasonableness, necessity, the medical-billing evidence and Colorado collateral-source law. Preserve all billing and payment fields rather than assuming either the gross charge or the paid amount automatically controls.
Can I recover future medical expenses?
Potentially, when the evidence establishes that the future care probably will be incurred and provides a sufficient foundation for its nature and value.
What if I went back to work but cannot do the same work as before?
Past wage loss and diminished earning capacity are different theories. A return to work does not necessarily eliminate a supported claim for reduced future earning ability.
Can I claim diminished value after my vehicle is repaired?
Colorado CJI 6:12 recognizes reasonable repair cost plus the remaining decrease in market value after repair, subject to the applicable pre-loss market-value ceiling.
Can I recover rental-car or loss-of-use damages?
Potentially. CJI 6:13 allows reasonable compensation for loss of use during the time reasonably required for repair using an appropriate rental/replacement-value or lost-profit measure.
Does comparative fault reduce damages?
Yes where proved and where recovery is not barred. Guide 17 explains Colorado's modified comparative-negligence and pro rata-liability framework.
Is failure to follow every treatment recommendation automatically mitigation?
No. Failure to mitigate is an affirmative defense requiring proof of an unreasonable failure to take reasonable steps and additional damages caused by that failure.
Should I settle when the insurer offers the policy limit?
Not merely because the offer equals one visible limit. First identify total damages, all responsible parties and policies, UM/UIM, liens/reimbursement, future losses and the scope of the proposed release.
Crash-damages worksheet
| Field | Record | Decision question |
|---|---|---|
| Past medical gross charges | $__________ | Complete itemized bills obtained? |
| Medical paid amounts | $__________ | By whom and under what benefit source? |
| Medical adjustments | $__________ | Contractual write-off, provider adjustment or other? |
| Outstanding medical balances | $__________ | Who still claims payment? |
| Future medical | $__________ | Probable care, duration and cost foundation? |
| Past wage loss | $__________ | Employer/payroll/tax proof? |
| Future wage loss | $__________ | Defined period and medical restriction? |
| Earning-capacity loss | $__________ | How is probable earning ability changed? |
| Other economic loss | $__________ | Documented and causally related? |
| Noneconomic loss | $__________ | Pain, inconvenience, stress, quality-of-life proof? |
| Physical impairment | $__________ | Separate functional-loss proof? |
| Disfigurement | $__________ | Separate visible/permanent-change proof? |
| Vehicle pre-loss value | $__________ | Market evidence? |
| Repair cost | $__________ | Reasonable and documented? |
| Residual diminished value | $__________ | Post-repair market evidence? |
| Loss of use | $__________ | Reasonable repair/replacement period? |
| Other property | $__________ | Receipts/photos/market value? |
| Gross damage model | $__________ | All categories separated without duplication? |
| Plaintiff comparative fault | __________% | Guide 17 analysis complete? |
| Nonparty allocation | __________% | Properly designated and supported? |
| Liability coverage | $__________ | All driver/owner/employer/excess policies found? |
| UM/UIM coverage | $__________ | Underinsurance analysis complete? |
| Liens / reimbursement | $__________ | Validity, amount and reduction reviewed? |
| Interest issue | Yes / No | § 13-21-101 analysis needed? |
| Release readiness | Yes / No | Are future loss, coverage and liens mature enough for finality? |