There aren’t many injuries that are quite as severe as brain injuries are. Brain injuries can cause lifelong disabilities and even paralysis, which can in turn cause a significant drop in the quality of a person’s life.
If you have received traumatic brain injuries and want to claim compensation, then the process is relatively straightforward. Despite the process’s simplicity, if you haven’t ever been involved in a legal claim of any kind before, it will likely seem very confusing to you. This post will simplify the process, by explaining how you can advance (and win) your traumatic brain injury case:
Legal Aid
The first thing that you need to do if you want to make a personal injury case of any kind is to seek out legal aid. A question that people commonly ask after sustaining brain injuries is ‘what is my traumatic brain injury case worth?’. A lawyer will be able to work with you and help you to calculate your case’s worth. A lot of different things are factored in when working this out, including how your life has been affected, whether you will be able to work or not, and how you are dealing with your injuries mentally. If you are on a restricted budget and can’t afford to hire a lawyer, then you should be able to get one to represent you on a no-win-no-fee basis. No-win-no-fee means that you don’t have to pay for legal support unless you win.
Medical Evidence
You will also want to go and get some medical evidence, proving that your injuries are as severe as you claim they are. You can do this by going to the physician that has been treating you and asking them to write you a certificate. Make sure that the certificate is concise and includes information about how you are being treated (and how you have responded to treatment). You should explain to the doctor that you asking for a certificate from what the evidence is going to be used so they can be as clear as possible when writing it.
Damages Statement
You will likely also need to write out a damages statement, explaining how severely your injuries have impacted your life, and what’s changed since you have sustained them. The insurance adjustors that your lawyer will be working with to win you your compensation will need some kind of statement from you so that they can work out how much you should be paid. If your case is going to court, then a damages statement can be very impactful. If you are unable to write the statement yourself, then ask a loved one to do it for you and tell them what to write.
Complete Honesty
After receiving an injury, it’s natural to want to exaggerate the extent of your injuries. It is human nature to want to do this. If you want to win your case, you need to be as honest as possible, and mustn’t exaggerate in any way. If you are found to be exaggerating, then your case could be dismissed. Additionally, it’s very probable that your lawyer won’t work with you any further if you lie to them, because lies could damage their reputation, also.
Providing Witnesses
If you have any witnesses who were present on the day or night of your accident, then you should give their information to your lawyer. A witness’s testimony can help you to win your case, especially if they are impartial (i.e., not a loved one or friend). You should also provide the contact information for any witnesses to the way that your injuries have been impacting your life, such as anyone that you live with, like a parent or partner. These witnesses can be used to support your claims about how your injuries have impacted your life and why you should get compensation.
Receiving Treatment
Lastly, make sure that you actively engage with medical treatment. The worst thing that you can do after a brain injury is to stop engaging with your healthcare provider. In addition to being very bad for your health, refusing to engage with your physician can also make you look very bad in the eyes of your lawyer, the court, and the insurance adjustors. All of these people will wonder why you are not receiving treatment. If you choose to refuse treatment, it is an indication that you aren’t actually suffering because of your injuries and are fine.
If you have sustained some kind of brain injury, then you need to make a compensation claim against the person or organization responsible for causing it. If your injury is severe enough, you could receive a very large settlement.
