An accident can change the direction of a person’s life in a matter of seconds. One moment you may be on your way to work, and the next you may find yourself in the middle of a major auto accident.
While you may seem fine at first, and even walk away from the accident, serious symptoms like memory loss, confusion, and intense headaches may not appear for days or even weeks later.
These can all be signs of a traumatic brain injury. Often called “invisible injuries,” traumatic brain injuries don’t always make themselves immediately known or visible to others. But they can have a devastating long-term impact on an individual's health nonetheless.
Proving these cases is both medically and legally complex, and fighting insurance companies only adds to the stress in the aftermath of an accident. That’s why many victims turn to a Minnetonka brain injury attorney to guide them through the brain injury claim legal process.
What Constitutes a Traumatic Brain Injury?
Most traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) occur when the brain is damaged by an external force. This is often caused by a direct blow to the head, like the head hitting the ground in a slip and fall accident. Yet not all TBIs are caused by a direct hit to the head.
Car crashes are one of the biggest causes of traumatic brain injuries. A rear-end collision actually has the potential to significantly damage the brain simply from the force of the impact bouncing the brain around inside the skull.
Depriving the brain of oxygen can also potentially result in a traumatic brain injury.
But not all brain injuries qualify as severe traumatic brain injuries. A common example is a concussion, which is considered a mild traumatic brain injury.
Concussions are indeed serious. Their symptoms often include headaches, dizziness, confusion, and memory issues. But many concussions improve over time and symptoms eventually disappear.
Moderate to severe TBIs are life-altering.
These injuries are much more serious, with symptoms ranging from loss of consciousness to brain bleeding and cognitive impairment. Serious brain injuries can even result in speech difficulties and personality changes in the victim.
The most severe brain injuries may require long-term rehabilitation, neurosurgery, occupational therapy, and in-home care. Many of these conditions persist for years, and in some cases the rest of a person’s life.
That puts them in a wholly different class than mild brain injuries. When pursuing a traumatic brain injury claim, it's important to understand the difference in severity of head injuries.
How Severe Brain Injuries Happen in Minnetonka Accidents
Severe brain injuries can happen in a variety of ways, but not every incident requires a brain injury attorney. In our experience handling brain injury lawsuits, there are a few types of incidents where a personal injury lawyer for brain injuries can help.
Car Accidents
Car crashes are violent. They’re often high-speed, or cause a vehicle to roll over. Many of them have the potential to cause serious long-term brain injuries.
If a victim is hit by a driver who is either intoxicated, distracted, speeding, or recklessly driving and responsible for the accident, brain injury lawyers can help prove liability.
Motorcycle Accidents
Car accidents are extremely dangerous, but motorcycle accidents are even more so. Riders don’t have the benefit of an enclosed vehicle taking the brunt of the impact.
Even when they wear a helmet, riders often suffer skull fractures or other injuries that can lead to brain swelling and permanent damage to the head.
Slip and Fall Accidents
When unsafe conditions exist on a property that cause someone to slip and fall, head trauma can lead to a TBI. This happens all too often in Minnesota winters where ice-covered sidewalks become slip and fall hazards.
Wet floors, broken stairs, and even poor lighting are also prime causes of severe head trauma. Under Minnesota law, property owners are responsible for safety on their properties, a concept called premises liability. If the owner knew about an unsafe condition, or should have known, and failed to act, they may be liable for personal injuries that occur.
Product Liability
Just like property owners, manufacturers have a legal responsibility for the safety of their products.
A defective helmet, faulty recreational equipment, or unsafe machinery can all lead to severe head injuries. These claims can become highly technical, and may require the testimony of manufacturers, distributors, and engineers to determine liability.
Assault
Unfortunately, one of the leading causes of TBIs is assault.
Violent incidents like bar fights, physical assaults, and muggings can leave a person with lifelong brain damage. In some cases, third parties may be liable for assaults. For example, a business or property owner that failed to provide reasonable security measures, leading to an incident.
Proving Negligence in a Minnetonka Brain Injury Case
If you’ve suffered a TBI, how can you actually prove negligence in a brain injury case?
In Minnesota, an individual, business, or organization may be liable for injuries if their careless or wrongful conduct led to an accident that caused an injury. To prove negligence in a personal injury case, the law requires four basic elements to be met: duty of care, breach of duty, causation, and damages.
Duty of care means that defendants have a legal responsibility to take reasonable action to avoid causing harm to others. For example, if a restaurant has a water spill, they have a responsibility to clean that up so that no one gets hurt.
Now imagine the restaurant fails to clean the spill or put up a wet floor warning sign. A customer walking through slips and falls. The restaurant has violated the second element, breach of duty.
If the slip and fall accident caused the victim to hit their head and suffer a traumatic brain injury, then the next element, causation, has been met. The brain injury is a direct result of the restaurant’s failure to clean up the spill.
The final element is damages. This is the actual cost of the victim’s losses. It can include medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and loss of earning potential.
Meeting these four conditions is often enough to prove negligence in many brain injury cases.
It's also important to note that Minnesota uses a comparative fault system. This means that a victim’s compensation in a personal injury case can actually be diminished if they are at fault for their own injury. In this example, if the injured person was sprinting through the restaurant when they slipped on the water spill, they might be partially at fault for the injury.
Why Traumatic Brain Injury Claims Require Extensive Medical Evidence
It's also important to note that Minnesota uses a comparative fault system. This means that a victim’s compensation in a personal injury case can actually be diminished if they are at fault for their own injury. In this example, if the injured person was sprinting through the restaurant when they slipped on the water spill, they might be partially at fault for the injury.
Because these injuries are often difficult to measure and can slowly evolve over time, insurers can be quick to dispute their legitimacy.
Insurance companies may argue that symptoms are being exaggerated, or that they existed before the incident occurred. They may also argue that the symptoms are psychological or that they don’t prevent the victim from working or living a normal life.
The tendency of insurers to make these disputes adds an extra layer of complexity to TBI cases. That's why seeking opinions from brain injury specialists like neurologists, neurosurgeons, occupational therapists, and cognitive rehabilitation specialists is crucial to proving the legitimacy of a TBI.
Experienced brain injury claim attorneys like those at Fields Injury Law can help connect you with independent medical specialists in Minnetonka experienced in evaluating traumatic brain injuries.
Together, your legal and medical teams can document the extent of your injury. ER records, MRI/CT scans, and neurological evaluations can all demonstrate the severity of the injury, as well as the long-term prognosis and future care needs.
How a Minnetonka Brain Injury Attorney Can Help Build Your Case
Traumatic brain injury claims are among the most complex types of personal injury cases we see at Fields Injury Law. These cases are about more than proving liability. They also require extensive medical evidence to prove that long-term brain injuries are related to that specific accident.
For many victims who are already struggling with a life-altering injury, navigating the medical and legal aspects of these cases is overwhelming. The process can be extremely difficult to navigate on your own without help from a traumatic brain injury lawyer.
At Fields Injury Law we offer a stress-free initial consultation where we can help you understand your legal options. Should you choose to move forward with us, we work on a contingency fee basis. That means there is no attorney fee unless we recover compensation for you.
Should you choose to work with us, we will guide you through the brain injury claim legal process step by step and help you establish the evidence to prove your claim.
- Investigate Liability: We conduct accident liability investigations into your TBI to collect evidence like video, photos, police reports, and witness statements
- Collect Records: Our brain injury claim attorneys gather the existing medical records and reports related to your TBI.
- Work With Experts: We can arrange visits with specialists who can further examine the severity of your injury.
- Manage Communications: We handle all the interactions with defendants and insurance companies on your behalf.
- Calculate Damages: We can calculate the total costs of rehabilitation, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, emotional distress, and loss of consortium for a comprehensive estimate of how much your TBI claim is worth.
- Negotiate Settlement: We lead negotiations with insurance companies for a fair settlement that can potentially avoid trial.
- File Lawsuit if Necessary: If a fair settlement cannot be reached, our brain injury attorneys are ready to represent you in court, including filing paperwork and litigating at trial.
How Much is a TBI Claim Worth in Minnetonka?
TBI cases often involve significant damages because the consequences of the injury can alter a person’s life forever.
Traumatic brain injury lawsuits typically seek recovery for a victim’s medical bills. Depending on the severity of the injury, these amounts can be substantial. Claims include the cost of emergency surgeries, rehabilitation costs, future treatments, and in-home care.
Victims can also attempt to recover lost wages and damages for reduced earning capacity. If the victim holds a high-paying position, the potential value of their claim can increase significantly.
Then there are the non-economic damages that can factor into how much a TBI claim is worth. The human losses like pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life can all add to the claim’s value.
It's important to understand that each traumatic brain injury claim is different. There are no guarantees around what a settlement can be worth, and no two injuries will be worth the same amount.
The value of a claim will ultimately depend on the severity of the injury, the circumstances that caused it, liability disputes, and medical costs. The impact of the injury on the victim’s ability to work and their quality of life all factor in as well.
Fields Law Can Help You Navigate the Brain Injury Claim Legal Process
Severe traumatic brain injuries are life-altering. They can leave a person struggling with their health for years, and can prevent them from working and even enjoying life.
On top of that, the legal process for brain injury claims requires extensive medical evidence to prove the severity of the injury, as well as substantial evidence to prove liability.
That makes it all the more important to have a trusted personal injury lawyer for brain injuries on your side before moving forward with a claim.
At Fields Injury Law, we can guide you through the process. We offer a free initial consultation to help you understand your legal options and decide if filing a traumatic brain injury claim is the best move for your situation.
We work on a contingency basis, so there is no out of pocket expense for our clients. We only get paid if we recover compensation for you.
To get the process started, contact Fields Injury Law today and speak with one of our brain injury claim attorneys.
Fields Law Firm — Attorney responsible for this ad: Steve Fields
DISCLAIMER: Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is different and must be evaluated on its own facts. Contact Fields Law and let us hear your case and evaluate your options.
