A traumatic brain injury can have devastating effects on every aspect of your life. Many brain injury victims find the road to recovery very long and incredibly difficult. Some never fully recover.
Brain injuries, including traumatic brain injuries, can be caused by numerous accidents and personal injuries. A serious car accident or a slip and fall could lead to traumatic brain injuries. The person responsible for the accident can be held liable in a lawsuit. If someone caused your injuries through an accident, you can sue them for negligence. To get your lawsuit started, you will need evidence from the accident demonstrating how the defendant is liable. You will also need evidence to establish the extent of your damages. An attorney can help you get your case started, identify important information, gather evidence, and make sure your legal rights are protected.
If you have suffered a brain injury, you should be compensated for your pain and damages. Our Indianapolis brain injury attorneys can get you on the road to recovery. For a free case review, call Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.
Brain injuries have numerous causes. Although things like car accidents are often associated with brain injuries, they can be caused by various accidents and incidents. Our Indianapolis brain injury lawyers have experience with a wide variety of brain injury cases, and we can help you get compensation for your injuries.
As mentioned, car accidents are a significant source of traumatic brain injuries. Even minor accidents with relatively minor vehicle damage can leave drivers and passengers with severe brain injuries. All it takes is one solid bump of the head against the steering wheel or dashboard, and a person may be left with a serious brain injury. It is possible to suffer a brain injury without a physical impact to the head, if there is enough forceful movement of the head to move the brain within the skull. This can happen, for instance, when a person suffers severe whiplash from a rear end collision, even when the head does not make contact with another object.
Various forms of head trauma may lead to brain injuries. For example, construction workers hit on the head by tools or lumber may experience brain injuries. Someone pushed to the ground might hit their head, causing brain injuries. Sports-related accidents are also common sources of brain injuries. Football players, rugby players, and other athletes playing contact sports are especially susceptible to brain injuries.
Slip and fall accidents are very common, and most people tend to disregard them as more embarrassing than dangerous. However, a slip and fall victim who hits their head when they fall may experience traumatic brain injuries.
Other brain injuries may be caused not by trauma, but by a lack of oxygen to the brain, known as hypoxia. The leading type of hypoxia is caused by stroke, however hypoxia injuries can also be caused by non-medical conditions such as drowning or strangulation which does not result in death.
After a brain injury, an injured victim can sue the person or people responsible for causing the injury. Recovering from brain injuries is often very expensive and brain damage is frequently permanent in some respect, which many require lifelong medical treatment or accommodations which should be paid for the responsible parties.
In most personal injury cases, the person injured is the plaintiff and works directly with their attorney to get compensation. In some brain injury cases, the injured person cannot file a lawsuit or communicate with their attorney because their injuries are so traumatic. Brain damage may impair a person’s cognitive functioning and abilities to communicate. In such cases, it might be necessary for a family member to file a lawsuit on their loved one’s behalf. Depending on your situation, this might involve several other legal hurdles, such as getting power of attorney or being appointed as a guardian.
When filing the lawsuit, you must first determine what parties were negligent in causing the injury. Every case is unique, and the defendant’s identity is not always clear right away. There could be one person to blame for the injuries or multiple people. It is critical to identify every responsible party, as brain injuries are often very serious and it may take multiple defendants to be able to pay for the compensation which is owed.
Our Indianapolis brain injury lawyers can help you start on the path to recovery by identifying all responsible parties, notifying their insurance, fully investigating the claim and hiring industry leading experts, and drafting your legal complaint and filing it in the proper court. Very specific procedures must be followed which vary with the facts of each case, and we very strongly recommend that your consult with a qualified TBI attorney in Indianapolis to ensure that your rights are properly protected.
Evidence Needed for a Brain Injury Lawsuit in Indianapolis
To get compensation for your injuries and damages, you will need evidence backing up your claims. Remember, every case is different, and each has unique evidence specific to the situation. However, some pieces of evidence are more standard and should be examined sooner rather than later.
Your medical records are critical to your case. Your medical records may be the primary evidence used to establish that you or your loved one suffered a brain injury. The sooner you receive medical treatment after being injured, the more accurate your medical records are.
If some sort of accident caused your injuries, we can work to obtain evidence from the accident scene. For example, photos and videos recorded immediately after a car accident or security camera footage that shows how the injuries occurred are extremely helpful. Onboard vehicle data recorders and dash cams often have vital information, but this evidence can be lost or overwritten within days if it is not preserved.
Anything that might connect the defendant to the accident and injuries will be important. Our Indianapolis brain injury lawyers will work to prove that the defendant was not only present when the injuries occurred but is the direct and proximate cause of the injuries.
Your economic and non-economic damages are the losses and injuries you went through because of your accident and brain injury. Some damages are economic, like bills and records of money spent on recovery. Other damages are non-economic and may be subject to interpretation and argument.
Medical bills for brain injuries are often very expensive. Treatment may be ongoing or slated to last indefinitely. Some people never fully recover from brain injuries and spend the rest of their lives taking medication or going to rehabilitation and therapy. All these expenses must be accounted for when calculated damages.
People who suffer brain injuries often have to quit their jobs because they cannot work. For some, this leave of absence from work is temporary. For others, it is permanent. You can include lost income, both current and future, as part of your total damages.
If you or your loved one require some form of long-term care after suffering a brain injury, the costs for that care may be added to your damages. The costs of nurses and long-term care facilities should be shouldered by the person responsible for the injuries.
Brain injuries often leave victims with immense pain and suffering and a significantly diminished quality of life. Victims of a brain injury often suffer from decreased ability to engage in critical reasoning, emotional regulation, and experience significant mood and personality changes.
These damages go far beyond the economic cost of medical treatment, and they deserve compensation. In our experience, these non-economic losses often constitute a far greater portion of what you are owed than the out-of-pocket losses you have incurred, and it is important that your legal counsel is skilled in documenting and proving these injuries. Our Indianapolis brain injury attorneys can calculate how much your pain and suffering are worth and add it to your damages.
After a brain injury, you may need serious help putting your life back together, and things might never be the same. Our Indianapolis brain injury lawyers can help you get started by filing a lawsuit. Call Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166 for a free case evaluation.
Don is a founding partner and one of the nation’s top-ranked personal injury litigators. He is a member of the Multi-million Dollar Advocates Forum, which includes less than 1% of the nation’s trial lawyers, and awarded the highest ranking given by Martindale Hubbel and AVVO.
More importantly, Don understands representing personal injury victims is about more than recovering the best settlement: it’s about helping clients get back on their feet and supporting them in every aspect of their recovery.
In nearly all cases, our clients seek compensation from the wrongdoer’s insurance company. Before forming Wruck Paupore, Jason worked for a prominent law firm representing some of the world’s largest insurers. This experience gives Jason a deep understanding of the insurance industry and the strategies it uses to pay injury victims as little as possible.
Jason -- and our entire team -- put this inside knowledge to work to force insurance companies to pay what is actually owed. Often, we use the insurance company’s own tactics against them as we fight for the full compensation our client deserves.
For more than four decades, Keith has been fighting for injury victims. During that time, he’s watched the insurance industry change, with insurers now more interested in protecting their stock price than treating injury victims fairly.
Since the beginning, Keith has put people first. From his childhood in Gary, Indiana during the 1960’s and working his way through law school, Keith has risen to become one of the Midwest’s most respected trial lawyers. He has never forgotten that being a lawyer is about helping people -- and seeing injury victims through struggles in a way that could change their lives forever.
Over the decades, Keith, Don and Jason have fought relentlessly for clients, even when other lawyers have said the case was impossible to win.
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