Brain injury cases are severe, and they have a significant impact on our clients' lives, as well as their daily activities and quality of life.
It's so important to hire an experienced Kansas City brain injury lawyer. The consultation with our office is free; that way, you have easy access to an attorney to evaluate your case.
We serve clients across Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Kansas, Overland Park, and various other areas in the county.
Why You Need an Experienced Kansas City Brain Injury Attorney
There are many complexities in TBI cases when dealing with insurance companies.
Traumatic brain injuries impact people's lives in different ways. The complexities of these cases mean that an experienced attorney who has handled various types of cases can often be more effective in dealing with insurance companies. The insurance companies know the playbook, and it's important to have experienced legal representation when pursuing fair compensation for serious brain injury cases.
Here at our firm, our personal injury attorneys can help guide you through the entire legal process, from the pre-litigation process of trying to resolve your case to the end of trial and appeal. Our firm has decades of experience with real trial lawyers and a dedicated legal team.
Accidents that Can Lead to Brain Injuries
All types of different accidents can lead to brain injuries.
- Motor vehicle accidents, which include car crashes, motorcycle accidents, bicycle accidents, pedestrian accidents, and fall accidents, occur frequently in nursing homes, workplaces, homes, and places of business.
- We often see head injury cases that arise from contact sports.
Types of Traumatic Brain Injuries
There are at least two different types of brain injuries classified as open-head injuries and also closed-head injuries.
Open Head Injuries
Open head trauma is a type of fracture. This is a skull fracture, where the brain is exposed based on a fracture of the skull. And a break in the bone that protects the brain. This severe brain injury can lead to blood vessel rupture and all types of hematomas, resulting in various abnormalities in the brain.
Closed Head Injuries
There are also closed head injury cases. That's when somebody sustains a serious injury to the brain without having a fracture of the skull. Both open and closed head injuries can lead to severe brain tissue damage and also brain death.
Even the mildest close head injury can lead to significant cognitive impairments, personality changes, mood swings, and loss of consciousness. Other problems are emotional regulation, vestibular or balance issues, auditory processing, and information when communicating. There's a scale of injuries, with certain types of concussions being considered the most minor up to major open head injuries with subdural bleeding and brain tissue damage, infarction, and death.
And brain tissue damage, infarction, and death.
Symptoms of a Brain Injury
There are a lot of symptoms to look for in terms of a brain injury, headaches, dizziness, sensitivity to light, and loss of consciousness. These are usually associated with a brain injury, but there might be other symptoms that people don't usually think of when assessing a concussion or a brain injury, like being really tired, wanting to sleep more often, not being able to process words as well or have a short- term memory to be able to remember the words that you want to use for word usage.
We've even had TBI victims who have struggled to recognize faces and put a face to a name more than just their everyday forgetfulness. We also see a lot of clients with different emotional changes, like mood swings. They may get much more upset than usual or are easily triggered.
Or they may get a lot more emotional when watching a commercial. Some clients report that other people have told them they have personality changes. They're just not the same person after a significant injury.
And a lot of times, the emotional distress that goes along with having to deal with injuries or an accident and the legal process, there's also kind of a reduced ability to be able to deal with emotional distress. For many of the clients that we've represented, this is essentially a permanent disability, and we've had some clients that have actually needed long-term care, vestibular therapy, and various forms of ongoing medical care just to help them try to cope with life the best that they can. This case can be an absolutely life-changing type of injury.
Just around the house, in a daily life setting, we've had a lot of clients who have reported that it just affects their ability to get things done, to do the chores or the housework that they've done before, to be there for their spouse or their family, and to do the things that they need to do in everyday life, with everyday activities of daily living and various other things that they need to function.
Our Process for Brain Injury Cases
We have a certain process for every brain injury case that we have. There are two parts: the pre-ligation process and the litigation process if the case goes to a lawsuit.
Pre-Litigation Process
It's essential right away that we begin collecting medical records.
In pre-litigation, we need to see how our clients are, what their doctors have reported about them, the extent of their injuries, and any recommended treatment. That includes records of CT scans, in-office visits, surgical consults, and hospital records. We also like to get a report from our clients about how their lives have been affected, both in their own words, based on a narrative they give us, and after we interview them to tell us how their lives have been affected.
But we also like to hear from their spouses, families, friends, and people who have seen them. In everyday life, they can tell us how they might be different. What we often find is that it's the family members and the friends who can report changes that the person who's been brain-injured doesn't even notice. Spouses tend to be the best at doing this because they see the person daily.
Once we have the medical records and understand the full extent of our client's injuries and treatment recommendations, and once we have a good understanding of the most important element—just how their life has been affected—then we're prepared to send a demand letter to the insurance company or the at-fault party to let them know the strength of our case and, if we were to proceed to a jury trial, what our case consists of.
Litigation Process
We can proceed to a lawsuit if we cannot resolve the case with the insurance company or the at-fault party. We start that by filing a petition in the court, in the county where the accident occurred typically, or the federal court in the region where the accident occurred. And that petition is filed by our plaintiff, by and through us, as our client's attorney, against the negligent party.
In some cases, we have a direct action directly against the insurance company, and we can name the insurance company as a party.
Types of Damages
We can ask for damages under state law when we file suit.
- The first is medical expenses for all of our client's expenses and any future medical insurance expenses that we anticipate our clients will incur.
- There's also a claim for our client's lost wages, which is the dollar value of the work that they've missed.
- Usually, the most significant element of a brain injury case can be what we call noneconomic damages, which include pain, suffering, mental anguish, emotional distress, inconvenience, and loss of enjoyment in life. This is a huge category in these cases because the extent of our client's loss is often not reflected by their medical bills.
That's just the amount owed to the doctors and the providers who help treat our clients to help them get better and heal. But that is not in any way a reflection of the value of their case because the real loss to our clients is how their lives have been affected. So this is why I mentioned earlier: we collect as much information as possible to show how their lives have been affected, the pain, the suffering, and the emotional distress.
In most cases, the negotiations are not over once we file a lawsuit. Often, the insurance company will come to the table after we file the lawsuit to try to resolve the case earlier. Many times, we actually want to go through the litigation process so we can show the insurance company why our case is worth so much more than what they initially offered.
That means we have to take depositions of the at-fault party, investigating officers, and witnesses. We also present our client for a deposition so that the defense can see how our client will present an interesting trial.
Of course, we prepare our clients well for this. Based on the strength of the litigation process, most cases will settle before we get to a jury trial. The facts of the case will be revealed during discovery and the litigation process, and often, insurance companies reassess and want to make a significantly better offer to try to resolve the case.
Of course, as we go along in the case, the litigation process often emboldens us, and our own valuation of the case increases, making it sometimes more difficult to get resolved before trial because we feel so good about our case and our chances at trial. It's always our client's decision whether we proceed to trial. We give them our best advice and estimate on how the case could go at trial, but of course, we don't have a crystal ball, and every case is unique.
If we tried any case ten times in front of ten different juries, we could get ten different results. So, we must inform our clients of the risk of proceeding to a jury trial. We've had many jury trials over the years, so we've gotten far better at assessing their risks, but you never know what will happen in front of a jury.
It's the same reason that insurance companies often want to pay a premium or a lot more than they thought they would have to: to reduce their risk and settle the case so they don't have to face a potential excess judgment against their insured.
Compensation Available for Brain Injury Victims
Medical expenses are the first category of compensation available for brain injury victims when somebody else is at fault.
Medical Expenses
Medical expenses are self-explanatory. They include whatever medical expenses are incurred due to the treatment that resulted from the accident and any medical treatment that can be estimated in the future.
Examples are physical therapy costs and following up with an orthopedist or a neurologist in brain injury cases. Also, many of our brain injury clients have seen what's called a neuropsychologist, and that's somebody who can evaluate the extent of our client's cognitive impairment. And for a few severe brain injury cases, long-term care is appropriate and can be extremely expensive.
Loss of Income
Our clients also have a claim for loss of income, if applicable. So if they had a job and they were not able to continue to work after the accident, then the amount of their lost income that they've incurred up to the date, we can make a claim for the full value of that. The same is true of any estimated earnings in the future.
So, just as an example, we've represented several professional truck drivers in the last year who've had significant future earnings losses because they can no longer drive professionally after they were involved in serious accidents.
Punitive Damages
In a select few cases, there can also be a claim for punitive damages. Punitive damages are available in cases where someone's conduct is more than just negligent. Still, when it's considered reckless or wanton, meaning that the person made a conscious choice to, for example, drink and drive or drive at an extremely excessive speed; the idea is if we can show that they would have consciously understood that what they were doing is reckless and putting other people at risk. They should be subject to punitive damages.
Punitive damages are more than just compensating our clients; they are the damages we've just discussed, such as medical expenses, pain, suffering, and lost wages. Punitive damages are designed to punish the wrongdoer for their reckless action. This can present an extreme risk to insurance companies when they don't protect their insurance by offering policy limits to settle cases. If their insurance gets hit with a punitive damages award, it's typically not covered by insurance.
How Can Our Kansas City Brain Injury Lawyers Help?
Our firm helps by conducting a thorough investigation and gathering all the evidence. This includes the motor vehicle accident report, witness statements, photos, and any information we can get about how the accident occurred. Also, we consult medical experts for our clients. So we talk to our client's actual treating physicians, and in some cases where it's necessary to seek the help of an outside expert, we will reach out to experts as well.
Our goal is to build as strong a case as possible during the investigation process. That means leaving no stone unturned, talking to as many witnesses as we can, and getting a true picture of what really happened so we can prove liability. The same is true for proving our client's damages. We want to build as strong a case as possible to really highlight the extent of our client's injuries and estimate how that will affect them in the future.
At this firm, we guide our clients through the pre-and post-litigation processes and the entire legal process.
Contact Our Kansas City Brain Injury Lawyers for a Free Consultation
Our traumatic brain injury lawyers offer a free case evaluation. It's important to stress that any potential client's contact with us is completely confidential.
We also treat the matter with urgency so that if we're able to represent somebody, we can get started right away, talking to family members, investigating the accident, and helping our clients throughout the process.