What are the general and special damages in a personal injury action?

^5. "'General damages are those which necessarily follow from the injury inflicted on the plaintiff, and are implied by law to have thereby accrued to him, although they need not always result from the commission of a particular wrong. Special damages, on the other hand, are those actually sustained by the plaintiff, and are not implied in law.' [Citation.] In personal injury actions, general damages include 'physical pain and mental suffering, sickness, loss of earning capacity and of [spouse's] services.' [Citation.] In contrast, medical expenses and loss of profits of a business, as distinguished from loss of earning capacity, constitute special damages. [Citation.]" (Parish v. Peters (1991)1 Cal.App.4th 202, 210, fn. 9.)

^6. In the same vein, default judgments have been reversed in non-personal-injury cases where the complaint did not state an amount but the plaintiff served a section 425.11 notice. (See, e.g., Dhawan v. Biring (2015) 241 Cal.App.4th 963, 970-971.) The correct procedure in such cases is the service of an amended complaint.