Pursuing the Compensation You Need
The knowledgeable Long Island brain injury lawyers at Rosenberg & Gluck, LLP have a strong track record of success handling Long Island brain injury cases. Recently, our team recovered over one million dollars for a construction worker who suffered a severe head injury while on the job.
Our legal team is highly familiar with the applicable New York state laws and the procedures that accident victims must follow in brain injury litigation. We can take the necessary legal steps to help you pursue the maximum compensation available in your case.
For a free case evaluation and legal consultation with a Long Island brain injury lawyer, please call us or contact us online for more information. We can assist you in both English and Spanish.
How Our Legal Team Can Help You
When it comes time to settle or litigate your brain injury case, you can be sure that the insurance company will not help you. In fact, the insurance company is your direct adversary, and they will try to save themselves as much money as possible. They do this by limiting the compensation they offer you as part of your settlement. Therefore, you need a solid legal team on your side advocating for you every step of the way.
Our legal team can help you recover the monetary compensation you deserve for your brain injury.
Specifically, we can assist with:
- Filing a personal injury claim on your behalf, negotiating a fair settlement with the insurance company
- Filing a lawsuit and litigating your brain injury case in court, if that becomes necessary
- Assisting you throughout the litigation process by answering discovery interrogatories and preparing you for depositions
- Retaining the experts required to help you prove your case
- Answering all of your legal questions
Potential Damages for You and Your Family in a Traumatic Brain Injury Case
When accident victims can prove the legal elements of their brain injury claim, both they and their families can recover various damages. The amounts and types of damages that brain injury victims can recover depend upon multiple factors.
Those factors include:
- The specific injury they suffered
- The type and cost of medical treatment that they underwent
- Whether or not they suffered a permanent brain injury in their accident
Moreover, juries and courts will consider whether the accident victim might require a future procedure or some other medical treatment and the anticipated treatment cost when awarding damages.
Brain injury victims can pursue monetary compensation for any of the following:
- Medical treatment costs – Brain injury victims often need to undergo significant medical procedures after consulting with specialists. They can recover the costs of those procedures, medical visits, MRIs, treatment, medications, and mobility aids, such as crutches.
- Lost wages – When accident victims suffer a brain injury, they may need to miss significant time from work to recover and attend medical appointments. When a medical provider authorizes an accident victim to be off work, they can recover lost wages for the missed time. In addition, if their brain injury prevents them from working indefinitely, they can bring a claim for loss of earning capacity.
- Pain, suffering, and inconvenience – Brain injury victims often experience tremendous inconvenience, suffering, and pain resulting from their injuries. All these damages are compensable, both in the past and future. Past pain and suffering compensate an accident victim for everything they experienced between the date of their accident and the current time. Future pain and suffering compensate accident victims for the symptoms they will likely encounter. Many brain injury victims experience symptoms for years after their initial accident.
- Loss of use of a body part – Some brain injury victims, especially those who also suffer spinal cord injuries and paralysis, might be unable to use a body part for the remainder of their life. They may also lose the ability to use their bowels or bladder. In those instances, the accident victim can bring a claim for loss of use, seeking monetary compensation for those disabilities.
- Loss of life enjoyment – Traumatic head injuries can lead to a lifetime of pain and inconvenience. When that happens, accident victims might be unable to partake in recreational activities, sports, and other life events they once enjoyed. When that happens, they can bring a claim for loss of life enjoyment and recover monetary compensation.
- Lifelong care – Some brain injury victims suffer such severe injuries that they can no longer care for themselves going forward. They may need to reside at a nursing home or assisted living facility and rely upon others to care for them and provide for their basic needs. These lifelong care costs are compensable as part of a personal injury claim.
- Wrongful death – Some traumatic head injuries result in an accident victim’s premature death. If that happens to your loved one, you can open an estate and pursue wrongful death damages. Potential damages in a wrongful death claim or lawsuit include compensation for burial and funeral expenses, loss of the decedent’s future income, and loss of the decedent’s care, companionship, and comfort.
The experienced Long Island brain injury lawyers at Rosenberg & Gluck, LLP will do everything possible to help you recover the total monetary damages you deserve in your brain injury case—either through settlement or litigation.
What are Some Common TBI Symptoms?
Victims of serious accidents who suffer traumatic brain injuries sometimes experience debilitating symptoms that impact them for the rest of their lives. However, many of these symptoms do not manifest right away. In fact, it might take weeks, or even months, before these symptoms materialize.
Common symptoms related to traumatic head injuries include:
- Short-term memory problems
- Difficulty thinking
- Painful headaches
- Mood swings
- Inability to concentrate
- Fatigue
- Irritability
- Frustration
- Depression
- Nausea,
- Seizures
- Dizziness
- Difficulty sleeping
- Loss of balance
- Visual problems
If you exhibit any of these symptoms after a severe accident, you should seek medical care right away. If you go to an urgent care center or hospital emergency room, the provider can order the necessary tests to ascertain your medical condition and make an accurate diagnosis. Moreover, the responding healthcare provider can recommend follow-up treatment that you may need to avoid long-term symptoms.
You must seek medical treatment right after your accident, preferably on the same date. If you delay seeking medical treatment, any traumatic head injury you sustained can worsen with time. Moreover, the insurance company will likely become skeptical of your injuries if you do not seek immediate treatment—or if there are significant gaps in your treatment.
While you focus your attention on recovering from your head injuries, our legal team can begin the process of gathering the necessary documents and preparing your brain injury claim. Once your treatment is complete, we can begin the claims-filing process and start advocating for your legal rights.
What Are Some Common Causes of Traumatic Head Injuries?
Traumatic head and brain injuries are prevalent in accidents where other individuals or entities are negligent. One common source of head injuries can be car accidents. The force of the impact in a car crash might cause the accident victim’s body to move around inside their vehicle, and their head might strike something in the car—such as the window, steering wheel, or headrest—causing a severe head injury.
Car accidents typically happen when drivers behave unreasonably under the circumstances, such as by speeding, tailgating, failing to use a turn signal, failing to yield the right-of-way, and violating other road rules. Car accidents also sometimes happen when drivers engage in a distracted or intoxicated vehicle operation.
When drivers behave negligently, bicycle, motorcycle, and pedestrian crashes can also occur. These accidents are even more likely to result in head injuries because accident victims’ bodies are open to their surrounding environments. Bicycle and motorcycle riders do not have an outer metal covering that surrounds them when an accident happens. If the force of impact knocks the rider to the ground, they can suffer serious head injuries, especially if they land on their head or back.
Truck accidents happen in much the same way as car crashes when truck drivers operate vehicles recklessly or carelessly. However, truck accidents can also occur when drivers and the companies that employ them fail to follow state and federal motor carrier regulations—especially concerning load limits and correctly securing the cargo.
Head and brain injuries can also happen because of defective products. Manufacturers must design their products carefully and test them before making them available for sale. When a product explodes or malfunctions in some way, it can lead to smoke inhalation or lack of proper ventilation, causing a lack of oxygen flow to the brain.
When that happens, even for a short time, a severe brain injury can result in memory disabilities and a general lack of awareness.
Serious head injuries can also result from medical negligence and malpractice. Healthcare providers owe their patients a high duty of care, and when they deviate from that duty, and an injury or illness occurs, they can be responsible. Doctors, for example, must typically follow the standard of care for a hypothetical reasonable doctor acting under the same or similar circumstances. Specialists, such as heart doctors and orthopedic surgeons, for example, must follow a national standard of care.
An improper medical diagnosis or improper treatment can lead to a stroke, heart attack, loss of mobility, or similar injury, blocking blood flow to the patient’s brain. This oxygen deprivation can cause potentially fatal complications. Moreover, a doctor or MRI technician might fail to notice a brain tumor which can lead to complications.
Brain injuries also happen when healthcare providers are negligent in the birthing and delivery processes. These injuries may occur when an umbilical cord becomes compressed or twisted, the child is in a sideways position, or the child cannot easily move through the mother’s birth canal. If the medical provider fails to recognize the need for a C-section in time, they can deprive the baby of oxygen deprivation, leading to a severe brain injury or other medical condition.
Injuries and illnesses that workers sustain on the job can also lead to brain injuries. This is especially true when workers suffer exposure to harmful chemicals, including lead solvents, pesticides, and carbon monoxide gas.
All of these chemicals can damage brain neurons, which serve as the internal hardware system for the brain. If you become involved in a workplace accident that leads to a traumatic head injury, you might be eligible to file a claim for workers’ compensation benefits. In addition, you can bring a claim or lawsuit against a responsible third-party, such as an installer or manufacturer, for damages.
