Virginia Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyer FAQs

What to Do After a Cerebral Laceration

Cerebral tears can occur even if you don’t lose consciousness or suffer any immediate cognitive difficulties after the accident. Because of the potential for serious health problems, it is important to see a doctor after any head injury to determine if a laceration has occurred. Cerebral laceration treatment may require an extended hospital stay so you can be monitored for swelling, ensure your brain is receiving enough oxygen, and manage pain.

A doctor visit also establishes a paper trail on your injury so an insurance carrier or at-fault party can’t claim the damage to your brain occurred in a previous incident. If someone else caused your cerebral tear, you should contact an experienced attorney focused on traumatic brain injury cases to determine who is legally at fault for your injury and seek compensation.

Related Links: What Are the Symptoms of a Brain Injury? Living With a Brain Injury Victim in Virginia? How a Lawyer Decides Whether to Take a Brain Injury Case

 

Should Someone Else Be Paying for Your Rehab?

If another driver, property owner, or another negligent party was responsible for causing the accident that left you injured, you might have a claim for compensation from their insurance company. At the Mottley Law Firm, we are experienced with traumatic brain injury claims and understand what kinds of long-term therapies and treatments may be required. If you or a loved one has suffered a TBI in an accident, reach out to our firm today to find out if we can help. We only accept a few personal injury cases at a time because we want to provide each of our clients with the highest level of service. If we can do your case justice, we will tell you how!

Related Links: Diffuse Axonal Brain Injury in a Virginia Accident Traumatic Brain Injuries in Children Caused by Car Accidents Concussions Are a Mild Form of Traumatic Brain Injury

 

No matter what level of brain injury you or your loved one has suffered, if another person’s negligence caused the car accident, slip and fall, or workplace accident that lead to your TBI, you need an attorney to help you fight for damages. Contact the Mottley Law Firm to learn more about our traumatic brain injury legal services.

Related Links: Do I Need a Lawyer? What Attorney Fee Do You Charge? How Do You Decide Whether to Take My Brain Injury Case?

 

Occupational rehabilitation

If your TBI prevents you from returning to the type of work you did before the accident, you may undergo occupational therapy to learn new ways to complete tasks or to learn a new trade altogether.

Support groups and counseling

People with TBI may experience depression and have other emotional struggles. Group and individual counseling can ease some of the suffering.

Your doctor will recommend the right combination of these rehabilitation services for your specific case.

Worried About Paying for Rehab? Our Richmond Attorney May Be Able to Help!

If a careless driver, negligent property owner, or non-compliant employer contributed to the cause of the accident that left you struggling with a TBI, you might be able to sue for compensation to cover your losses. Our brain injury lawyer can fight the complex battle against an insurance company and the people who caused the injury while you focus on recovering from the injury. 

Related Links: Do I Need a Lawyer? What Attorney Fee Do You Charge? How Do You Decide Whether to Take My Brain Injury Case?

 

Another factor that plays into this issue is that emergency personnel, including EMTs and emergency room doctors, are typically more focused on other problems with a patient than they are with investigating whether a concussion occurred.  To illustrate the point, let's assume a patient was in a car accident in which they broke their leg and suffered a nasty gash on their hand, which is bleeding profusely.  When they arrive at the emergency room, they are fully awake and oriented.  They are as conscious as a person can be.  But they're bleeding and in a lot of pain.  The ER doctors are going to focus, first, on stopping the profusely bleeding hand and, second, on getting down to fixing that broken leg.  They'll most certainly ask whether a loss of consciousness occurred.  The answer will in most cases be "I don't know" or "no," at which point the medical personnel will check that box off in their report and move on.

This sort of dynamic is why a recent study showed that more than 50% of mild traumatic brain injuries (concussions) are not diagnosed in the emergency room.

Here at The Mottley Law Firm, most of the traumatic brain injury cases we handle involve a person who either responded "no" or "I don't know" to the question, "did you lose consciousness."  That is the fact pattern we see most of the time in mild TBI cases.

If you or a loved one have suffered a mild traumatic brain injury or concussion due to some sort of accident or mishap, feel free to contact us about the matter.  We focus a significant portion of our practice on helping people in this position with their legal needs.

Why is this distinction important? It is important because of the common law in Virginia. Virginia is one of only two states (I believe) that still adheres to the old rule that, if an injured person's own negligence contributed to his or her own injury, then the person is completely barred from recovering compensation from the defendant. So, for example, if a defendant store was negligent in maintaining its store by leaving a tripping hazard in a walk way, a person injured by that negligence would be completely barred from recovering money from the defendant if the injured person was also negligent in failing to watch where they were walking. This is a pretty harsh rule, particularly in cases in which the injured person was only slightly negligent. That, unfortunately, does not matter. Most other states adhere to some sort of "comparative" negligence rule.  In such states, the jury can take into consideration the degree of negligence attributable to each party and take that into consideration when awarding compensation to the injured person.   

They say that “seeing is believing.” When it comes to proving that a brain injury occurred, I do believe in that saying. To win, you must demonstrate the injury to the jury. To demonstrate that the plaintiff does have a mild traumatic brain injury, we use numerous demonstrative exhibits and other visual exhibits (such as photographs) to show the severity of the impact. We also use illustrations and models of the skull and brain, and we have the plaintiff’s doctor visually show the jury exactly where and how the plaintiff’s brain was injured. Every case is different but, in every case, the trial lawyer wins by successfully demonstrating the existence of an injury.

Equally important to the plaintiff’s success is having friends, family, coworkers, and physicians come in to court and tell the jury that they have personally witnessed and observed a change in the plaintiff since the accident. This is incredibly important to a successful case.