Economic damages, sometimes called special damages, cover losses that can be tied to a specific dollar figure: medical bills, lost wages, lost future earning capacity, property damage, and out-of-pocket expenses. They are typically supported by bills, pay records, and expert economic projections, and are the easiest category for a jury or arbitrator to verify.

Non-economic damages, sometimes called general damages, cover harms that have no market price: pain and suffering, emotional distress, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life. Many states cap non-economic damages by statute, particularly in medical malpractice cases, while economic damages are rarely capped because they represent documented, calculable loss.

Juricratic's damages layer keeps these two buckets structurally separate rather than blending them into one number, because they behave differently under a statutory cap, respond differently to evidence quality, and carry very different levels of uncertainty — which is exactly the kind of distinction a sensitivity sweep needs to preserve to be useful.

Litigators build a damages model in two tracks from the outset: an economic damages track supported by documentary and expert evidence that survives a Daubert challenge, and a non-economic damages track that is argued narratively to the jury and checked against any applicable statutory cap before a verdict range is presented to the client.