What is the Process of a Brain Injury Lawsuit in the US?

December 5, 2022

If you are in the unfortunate position where you need to file a compensation claim for a brain injury, this article could help. By understanding the process of claiming compensation for a brain injury, you can understand how easy it is to claim back those medical expenses.

Brain injuries are among the worst injuries that you can suffer. They may leave you with permanent symptoms, such as a coma, loss of reasoning, or loss of motor skills. Brain injuries are among the worst and that is why the law defends the victims in brain injury cases. If you have suffered such an injury and you have been thinking about filing a claim against the third party’s insurer, read this article and make your decision. 

If you become injured and it was not your fault, the correct course of action is always proceeding with a claim for compensation. This is the only tool you must prevent what happened to you from happening to someone else. Meanwhile, let us review the process 


Who is Eligible to Claim Compensation for a Brain Injury?

Here in the US, traumatic brain injuries affect an estimated 1.5 million of us, every year. It impacts so many lives every year, that the US government wrote specific legislation governing the condition. This is because traumatic brain injuries often leave the sufferer too mentally disadvantaged to pursue legal recompense on their own. Instead, hiring a lawyer to fight your case becomes essential. 

The traumatic brain injury act specifies that those eligible to file a lawsuit must have suffered an injury to the brain. This injury must leave them significantly impaired. These injuries result from sudden impacts or surgeries gone wrong. These impacts significantly impact a person’s quality of life, daily living, or motor skills. 

To be eligible to file a lawsuit under the Traumatic Brain Injury Act of 1996, you must have suffered an injury to your brain, skull, or head. This injury must impair you and affect your quality of life, although this does not need to be permanent. 

What is the Process of Filing a Brain Injury Lawsuit?

When you engage in a brain injury lawsuit, here are the steps you can expect to take. 

Hire a Brain Injury Lawyer

Start your journey by hiring a brain injury lawyer that specializes in your type of case. A standard attorney or your family lawyer will not do. Hiring a specialist gives you access to a network of people who can help you overcome your condition or get the compensation you deserve. Once you have your lawyer in place, you can be sure that you will not miss deadlines for filing documents, become lost in the process, or have your needs ignored due to a lack of representation. 

Gathering Evidence

When you have your lawyer in place, you should start to gather evidence to support your claim. It may be that the lawyer does this for you, while you are unconscious. Evidence gathering means speaking to any witnesses who say your accident happens. It means speaking with inspectors, taking photographs of the scene of the accident, and dealing with insurers. They will want all the evidence you can gather to support your claim. 

Gathering Paperwork

As well as evidence, you will want to gather all the other documents that support your case. There are various parts of a medical lawsuit for which you can claim. You can receive support for medical bills, for pain and suffering, and for loss of income and future income. Your traumatic brain injury lawyer will help you through these different areas.

No matter what, you need to present your lawyer with all the paperwork relating to your case. This means keeping track of the following things:

  • Medical interviews and appointments
  • Receipts for these interviews
  • Medical bills
  • Loss of income
  • Loss of future income
  • Traveling expenses
  • Any other associated treatment or travel costs

Recovering Properly

While your lawyer collects this paperwork for you, you should focus on making a full and complete recovery. Make sure that you attend all the appointments that your doctors recommend. Worry about reclaiming the costs later and concentrate on recovering as much as you can. There are three types of traumatic brain injury in the eyes of the law. There is a mild one, such as a concussion, a medium one, which you will eventually recover from, and a serious one, in which case you are permanently disabled. The worse your condition, the greater the compensation will be. 

Presenting Your Case

While you recover from a traumatic brain injury, your lawyer will put all the information together into one package. This package contains your sworn statement of events. They may ask you to sign this to say it is the whole truth. Your lawyer will present their version of events, and the opposition will present their version of events. This alternative version will try to disprove your claim. The reason for this is that the insurance company is the one who pays out, should the judge decide in your favor. 

The judge will review both cases and decide who is to blame for your accident. They may decide how much to award you in compensation, but likelier your lawyer and their lawyer will meet many times to agree on a settlement. You have the right to refuse the settlement if you think the offer is too low.

It is only if the two groups of lawyers cannot agree on a settlement sum that your case will go to court. Most cases settle out of court. This is because it is more expensive to fight a court battle than it is to pay out the compensation claim.

Moving on with Your Life

The last thing to worry about after you file your lawsuit is the recuperation time. After the case closes, move on with your life. Try your best to recover. If you have a permanent disability because of your accident, then see the therapists and specialists that you need to, to move on. Traumatic brain injuries are the worst kind of accident besides death. Seek justice so that the person who comes after you does not need to suffer as you did.





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