Assessing Damages in Maryland TBI Cases
To begin assessing damages you have to show the cost of the medical expenses for all treatment rendered to you from the day of the accident up until the present. If a doctor who is treating you has determined that your injuries are permanent and you will need to continue treatment into the future, then you can claim future medical expenses for the expected treatment that a doctor has determined you will be expected to receive over the course of your life time.
Many people who have sustained traumatic brain injuries go through years of occupational, physical and vocational therapy in order to gain back some of their normal functioning. People who undergo these injuries could have trouble talking, trouble walking, paralysis or nerve damage that deprives them of their normal independent functioning. In a sense, it’s almost like re-learning how to do all things that you take for granted, and that can be costly because the treatments can be expensive.
One of the other elements of damages that a person can claim as a result of a traumatic brain injury or from any personal injury case in general is pain and suffering, that is a legal term to define how your life has been affected following the accident, the degree to which your life has been negatively affected following your accident, meaning limiting your daily activities is a factor to be considered in assessing the damages against a wrongful party in a traumatic brain injury case
If you or a loved one have suffered a traumatic brain injury and are interested in filing a claim against the responsible party, the following is what you need to know about how damages are determined. For more specific information regarding your case, call and schedule a consultation with a Maryland TBI lawyer today.
Common Damages in Traumatic Brain Injury Cases
As mentioned above, the elements of damages for a TBI would still be:
- Pain and suffering
- Medical expenses
- Future medical expenses
- Future pain and suffering
- Future lost wages
It’s different than most cases because it usually involves a lot of medical treatment and a lot of potential future damages. In those kinds of cases, it’s a life changing injury and you’re looking at the long term effect of how this injury has affected you in carrying out the daily activities of your life from a mental, physical and emotional standpoint.
Damages Unique to TBI Cases
There is no element of damages that are unique to a TBI case except that a TBI has a potential for greater damages because there are more long lasting effects than other types of personal injuries.
People can heal a broken bone or heal a strained back or strained elbow. They can go back to where they were in a considerably short amount of time, but with a brain injury, where you have to re-learn a lot of things you’re hardly able to do, that could last years or for the rest of someone’s life.
The damages are assessed based on the extent of how it would affect their life and how long it will affect their life and for people with traumatic brain injury. The unique aspect of damages in a traumatic brain injury case are that the damages are usually are more substantial than typical injury cases.
Working With Your Attorney To Assess Your Damages
It really boils down to open levels of communication and constant interaction with a client to make sure you’re monitoring how their life has been affected and how their life has changed. As long as you have an open line of communication with the client and you are able to communicate with them and follow up about how their injuries have affect their life, you can work together to maximize the value of the damages that are assessed against the wrongful party.
