Compensatory Damages
In general, the damages that are recoverable are compensatory damages. The idea of the tort system of justice is to compensate the injured party for the loss suffered, i.e. to make them whole. To put it another way the objective is to put that person into the status that they were in before they were injured. In most instances that is impossible because the injury involves some physical injury. As such, all the court system can do is to compensate you with money for the injury that has been suffered.
Those compensatory damages that may be awarded are based upon such things as your physical injury, the duration of that physical injury, the permanency of that physical injury, if any, the medical expenses incurred, the loss of income incurred and the intangible element of the pain and suffering and anguish and embarrassment that you may have suffered.
See Brien Roches book Law 101 published by Sphinx Publishing for more information on this subject.
