Determining Traumatic Brain Injury Case Value
A traumatic brain injury (TBI) can diminish the quality of a person’s life for its entire duration. It can also adversely affect the lives of loved ones by placing the burden of care on them while stealing the joy of their relationship. What were everyday routine functions can become difficult or impossible. Motor skills, cognitive skills, verbal communication and other abilities, once taken for granted, are suddenly stolen without warning. This is often due to the negligence or malice of another individual or group.
When this happens, a skilled and experienced brain injury attorney is required to regain financial stability by obtaining the maximum award for the pain and suffering, loss of wages and emotional distress. The attorney may also claim loss of consortium for the spouse in these TBI cases.
Under Assessing a Brain Injury Case
The value of a brain injury case can very high but the expenses to successfully litigate the case are also substantial. An experienced brain injury attorney is quite familiar with all the costs associated with the case and will spare no expense to achieve the highest settlement possible. The attorney will also understand that the average person does not have the resources to pay for medical experts, accident reconstruction specialists, damage assessment and vocational experts, along with court fees and locating and interviewing witnesses. The attorney will in most cases take the case on a contingency basis. A fee will be collected and the advanced expenses recouped only after the case is settled.
Failure to Secure a Sufficient Brain Injury Case Settlement
Some attorneys, who are not experienced in TBI cases, may not recover enough in a case to bring lifelong financial stability to their client. For example a lawyer may settle a case for $200,000 which sounds like a lot of money at the time considering the client was only earning $35,000 per year. Deduct from that amount $60,000 in attorney fees and $40,000 in medical bills. The actual award to the client is half, or $100,000. That may still seem like a substantial amount.
That is until the client realizes that ongoing treatments and therapy are required and there is a high deductible and a cap on payments for continued treatment. Then the client realizes that working at their career of choice is no longer possible due to mental and physical challenges that have worsened. Now that client needs to file a disability claim, which may or may not be approved, requiring the retention of another lawyer. The disability lawyer requires to be paid out of pocket. That $100,000 award begins to quickly erode.
Pain and Suffering Damages in a Traumatic Brain Injury Case
When someone sustains a traumatic brain injury, they not only are suffering physical damage to their body but their mental and emotional state. The brain is one of the most singularly important parts of a human body in charge of not only regulating the physical aspects of self but the emotional and mental as well. A traumatic brain injury is a literal physical injury to the physical source of our mental and emotional state and therefore deserves to be acknowledged as a requiring greater compensation in the way of pain and suffering damages than most other injuries.
How Does a Traumatic Brain Injury Cause Pain and Suffering
When our physical source of mental and emotional and emotional being is injured a great deal of changes that can distress a victim can occur. People who have sustained traumatic brain injuries have been known to suffer intense depression over the many mental effects of a TBI. Cognitive skills can decrease and therefore job effectiveness can go down leading to unemployment. Relationships can be strained by mood swing symptoms and anger over frustration caused by the injury. Traumatic brain injuries can cause a spiraling chain of events that essentially ruin a person’s life. A skilled brain injury lawyer will take this into account when they work to ensure that a brain injury claim settlement sufficiently compensates a victim.
Experienced Brain Injury Attorneys Reap Rewards
An experienced, traumatic brain injury attorney understands that complications may arise in the future or underlying issues are present and not diagnosed properly. He will insist that you get second opinions and conclusive tests to best determine the true extent of your TBI. Some symptoms can be subtle or elusive like lack of focus, diminished verbal skills, loss of reasoning and scores of others. The attorney may require you to be thoroughly tested by a neuropsychiatrist who can be costly and not covered by insurance. This cost will also be advanced by the attorney in your case. If there are indications that serious underlying problems exist, the attorney may bring in experts to prove how costly your injuries will be over a lifetime.
Long Term Traumatic Brain Injury Effects and Your Settlement
Persons with a TBI may not be able to perform the job that they had prior to the accident. They may be forced to take a lower paying job or not work at all. They often have anger issues, memory loss, chronic fatigue, seizures and other problems that can negatively affect the ability to perform almost any job. Loss of income over an average 30 year career can total over one million dollars, even for a low to moderate income earning individual. Add to that the pain and suffering, the diminished quality of life and the cost of future care and that $200,000.00 settlement mentioned earlier, should have been 10 times that amount.
If you or a loved one suffered a traumatic brain injury, no matter how mild or severe, contact the offices of Dolman Law. The attorneys at Dolman Law have compassion coupled with a vast knowledge of traumatic brain injury cases. They have received record awards for their clients in the past who suffered from traumatic brain injury. You cannot afford to risk the quality of your entire life by hiring just any attorney. Speak with an experienced traumatic brain injury attorney today and get the settlement you deserve.
Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA
800 North Belcher Road
Clearwater, FL 33765
727-451-6900
