Do You Have Questions About Your Legal Rights Following a Brain Injury? Let Us Help.

There is no question about it:  most brain injuries are severely debilitating.  That's why it is critical for the families of brain injury victims to arrange for a board-certified personal injury lawyer to investigate the matter.

An excellent place to start your research is right here on our website.  If you do not find all of the answers you are looking for, please contact us and we will review any brain injury claim for free, and with no obligations.

Does it make a difference in my case what type of brain injury is involved?

Yes.  There are many different types of brain injuries, and they present different levels of severity. 

There are two general types of brain injury:  traumatic brain injury and acquired brain injury.  The following are the most common types of traumatic brain injury:  concussion, contusion, coup-contracoup, diffuse axonal, and penetration.  Common acquired brain injuries include:  anoxic anoxia, anemic anoxia, toxic anoxia, and hypoxic ischemic.

There are three different levels of brain injury, based upon severity:  mild traumatic brain injury, moderate traumatic brain injury, and severe traumatic brain injury.  Brain injury severity level is often determined based upon something called the "Glasgow Coma Scale."  This is a widely accepted neurological scale used to assess the severity of a brain injury.  The elements of the scale are "eye response," "verbal response," and "motor response."  Each response is assigned a number (depending on how the patient responds), and all of the response elements are added.  The total scale can rank from 0 to 15.  A GCS of 13 or higher reflects a minor brain injury, 9 to 12 refelcts a moderate brain injury, and 8 or less reflects a severe brain injury.

The more severe the brain injury, the more it will negatively impact one's life.  In general, more severe brain injuries will bring higher case values.  However, even minor brain injuries can be extremely debilitating to many people and therefore call for significant funds as compensation for the victim.

What kind of compensation is available to brain injury victims?

Brain injuries impact different people in different ways.  As a result, every brain injury case is different.  However, in general, brain injury victims will be entitled to the following types of compensation:

- Payment of past medical bills;
- Fund to pay future medical bills;
- Payment of wages for missed work;
- Payment for work that will be missed in the future (often for a lifetime);
- Pain;
- Mental anguish;
- Physical impairment;
- Disfigurement

In brain injury cases, the medical bills are often quite high.  Also, brain injury victims often need a lifetime of continuing medical treatment.  For this reason, we often hire a "life care planning expert" to review case materials, work with our client, and prepare a report that details all of the care they will need and how much it costs.  This figure represents the claim for payment of medical bills in the future.

Most brain injury victims not only miss work initially after the accident, but will never be able to work again.  In these situations, we hire an economist expert to prepare a report analyzing how much our client would have made for the rest of his or her career.  This figure represents the claim for payment of missed work in the future.

The remaining compensation elements are highly case specific and depend largely on how different a brain injury victim's life is compared to their condition and activities before the accident that cause the brain injury.

How does my lawyer prove a brain injury in court?

Usually brain injury cases are handled only by attorneys who are Board Certified.  Experienced attorneys will collect all of your medical records, including films from visual tests performed on your brain.  The lawyer will get the testimony of your primary doctors who have treated you.  If you underwent brain surgery, your lawyer will certainly get the testimony of your brain surgeon.  All of this evidence and information is then presented in settlement proceedings and, if necessary, at trial.

Contact one of our Houston brain injury lawyers for a free legal consultaion, with no obligations.

If you still have questions after researching our website, please contact us directly.  If you request, we will review your brain injury claim for free, and give you our opinion on the value of your claim and what it would take to get there.