Edison Brain Injury Attorney
Life with a traumatic brain injury often looks very different than it did before the accident, both for the victims of those injuries and for the loved ones who share life with them. Slip and fall accidents, construction accidents, and auto accidents can all leave you with traumatic brain injury through no fault of your own.
A personal injury claim cannot restore your brain to normal function—but if you suffered your traumatic brain injury due to the negligence of another party, a personal injury claim can help provide the funds you need to move forward with your life. Contact an Edison Brain Injury lawyer today for a free case evaluation with our personal injury team.
Table of Contents
- Impact of Traumatic Brain Injuries
- Challenges Faced After Traumatic Brain Injury
- Filing a Personal Injury Claim After Traumatic Brain Injury
- The Compensation You Can Expect for a TBI
- Edison Brain Injury Claim Frequently Asked Questions
- Benefits of Hiring a Brain Injury Attorney
- Contact an Edison Brain Injury Attorney
The Impact of Traumatic Brain Injury on Your Life
In the movies, traumatic brain injuries looks primarily like the loss of long-term memories. In reality, however, a traumatic brain injury often has more serious implications for every part of the victim’s life. Depending on the severity of the traumatic brain injury, victims may face ongoing challenges in their daily lives.
Physical Implications of Traumatic Brain Injuries
Following a traumatic brain injury, many victims experience physical symptoms that limit them as they go about their daily lives. They may experience:
- Ringing in the ears
- Headaches
- Vertigo
- Nausea
- Changes in sensory perception, including the way they perceive heat, cold, smell, or taste
- Visual disturbances, including blurred vision or tunnel vision
- Seizures
- Sleep disturbances
While some of these symptoms may decrease with time, other victims of traumatic brain injury experience permanent physical symptoms that can make it difficult to move forward with daily activities, whether at home or in the workplace.
Mental Challenges Faced After Traumatic Brain Injury
Traumatic brain injuries often cause complications that make it impossible for the victim to return to work or normal activities immediately after the accident. Often, victims suffer from:
- Long-term memory problems. Many victims of a traumatic brain injury suffer from serious memory problems. Some victims notice that these memories return gradually over time, often in response to specific triggers. Other victims may never fully recover some of their memories. In many cases, victims with traumatic brain injuries never fully remember the events surrounding the accident, including the accident itself, time in the hospital, or the events immediately before the accident.
- Short-term memory problems. Most people, at one time or another, will struggle to remember why they walked into a room or what they intended to do with a specific item. Victims who have suffered a traumatic brain injury, on the other hand, may struggle to remember simple things that usually remain in short-term memory: a person’s name, for example, or instructions for a task that needs to be completed. Victims may lose track of where common items throughout their homes get stored, requiring them to label the contents of drawers or cabinets to find things in the home.
- Issues focusing or concentrating. For many people with a traumatic brain injury, keeping attention focused long enough to complete a task becomes incredibly difficult. Victims of a TBI may struggle to concentrate on anything, whether watching television long enough to follow the plot of a story or completing an assignment at work. Unfortunately, this difficulty with focus can make it challenging for many victims of a TBI to return to work immediately following their accidents—and some victims never fully recover their former capacity for focus.
- Confusion and disorientation. Many victims with a traumatic brain injury become confused very easily. Victims may struggle to handle tasks that require a great deal of processing capacity or find themselves struggling to understand what someone else said to them.
The Emotional Challenges of Traumatic Brain Injury
In addition to physical and emotional symptoms, many victims with traumatic brain injuries face substantial emotional symptoms: not just emotional reactions to those injuries and the limitations that go along with them, but emotional disturbance caused by the injury itself. The brain, in addition to handling most cognitive tasks, also regulates emotion.
As a result, people who have suffered from a traumatic brain injury may struggle with:
- Depression and/or anxiety
- Difficulty regulating emotions
- Mood swings
- Inappropriate emotional responses to stimuli
The more severe the injury faced by the victim, the greater the likelihood grows that the victim will have ongoing symptoms. Even some victims with a minor traumatic brain injury have symptoms more than a year after the initial accident. Victims who sustain a severe traumatic brain injury may face years or even a lifetime of symptoms.
Filing a Personal Injury Claim After Traumatic Brain Injury
Filing a personal injury claim after a traumatic brain injury can help you seek compensation that, while it may not restore cognitive function or take back the pain and suffering you experience, can take some of the financial pressure off of you after your accident. Consulting an attorney often makes the personal injury claims process easier.
Finding the Responsible Party After Your TBI
After a traumatic brain injury, working with an attorney can help you better determine the party or parties responsible for your injuries. In some cases, multiple parties may bear liability for your injury. Consider these questions:
- Who bore a duty of care to you at the time of the accident? If you visited a store, for example, that store bears a duty of care to all its patrons to ensure a safe shopping experience.
- Who violated that duty of care? In the scenario mentioned above, for example, a store that failed to install handrails along a ramp or stairway in accordance with OSHA regulations could have violated its duty of care. Likewise, a store that did not put up wet floor signs or warn patrons about a slippery space violated its duty of care to visitors to the store.
- Did that violation lead to your traumatic brain injury?If, for example, you slipped and fell in the store, hitting your head on the floor or a nearby wall and causing your traumatic brain injury, the store may bear responsibility for your injuries.
By consulting an attorney, you can often develop a better picture of everyone who shares responsibility for your traumatic brain injury. For example, if a construction company left cords lying about in the store that caused you to trip and fall, that company might share liability for your injuries.
If more than one party caused your traumatic brain injury, you may need to file separate personal injury claims against each liable party to get the full compensation you deserve—and working with an attorney will help decrease the odds that you will miss anyone who owes you compensation for your injuries.
The Compensation You Can Expect for a TBI
After your TBI, you want to know how much compensation you can expect for your injuries. The compensation you receive can help pay your medical bills and make up for the fact that you must stay out of work following your head injury. Your compensation, however, will vary. When you consult an attorney, that attorney may give you a better picture of what compensation you can expect for your traumatic brain injury.
- Who caused your accident? If your TBI occurred in an auto accident, for example, your maximum compensation may stop at the limits of the insurance policy. If the responsible party carries minimum liability coverage, for example, he may carry only $15,000 in bodily injury liability coverage per individual injured in an accident. Stores, on the other hand, may carry a higher level of liability coverage that will make it easier for you to get the full compensation you deserve.
- How high are your medical costs? The cost of TBI can range, depending on its severity, between $85,000 and $3 million during the injured individual’s lifetime. If you face severe traumatic brain injury, especially with lifelong implications, you may have higher medical expenses than someone who makes a full recovery within a few months or years. The higher your medical expenses, the more compensation you should expect from the insurance company, up to the limits of the policy.
Common Claims
While other people’s results from personal injury claims, including accidents with traumatic brain injury, cannot guarantee the results of your claim, most people with TBI do use several guidelines to help put together their personal injury claims package. These elements usually include:
Medical expenses. After a traumatic brain injury, you will often spend time in the hospital. You may need multiple scans to track your brain’s recovery: after even a mild concussion, doctors want to track progress to ensure that the individual makes a full recovery. When you put together your claims package, talk to your lawyer about all of your medical expenses. You may need to include:
- Follow-up scans and procedures after your accident
- Visits with a physical or occupational therapist to help you relearn how to perform common activities
- Visits with a psychologist or psychiatrist to help manage symptoms of emotional disturbance
Lost wages. Even if you have no physical pain associated with your traumatic brain injury and you have no other injuries from your accident, traumatic brain injury can prevent you from returning to work or from performing your full work duties. If you work in a very focus-oriented profession or one that requires creative thinking or problem-solving, a traumatic brain injury may prevent you from performing those functions the way you did before the accident. You may need limited time at work even when you first return, since you may grow frustrated due to these increased challenges. Including lost wages as part of your personal injury claim can help you get compensation for some of that missed time at work.
Lost earning potential. When you suffer a severe traumatic brain injury, not only can it prevent you from returning to work short-term, it can impact your ability to ever perform that job to the best of your ability again. Some victims who’ve sustained a traumatic brain injury cannot work at all. Others must leave their current jobs behind for a position that requires less focus or comprehension. Filing for lost earning potential can help you return to school or gain certifications that make it possible for you to pursue new job opportunities.
Pain and suffering. A traumatic brain injury may cause physical pain and suffering through nausea, headaches, seizures, and vertigo. In addition, however, it often causes substantial emotional trauma—both because of the emotional regulation difficulties faced by victims with traumatic brain injury and because of the extreme difficulty associated with processing and focus following traumatic brain injury. Many victims with a traumatic brain injury find that they have trouble maintaining relationships or creating new relationships following the injury, especially as interests change or emotional processing remains difficult over time.
Common Edison Brain Injury Claim Frequently Asked Questions
There are many ways an individual can incur a traumatic brain injury due to someone else’s negligence in Edison. One of the most common is traffic accidents that can occur on roadways such as I-287, U.S. Route 1, I-95, or other streets through residential and business sections of the city.
Edison residents may also experience a brain injury because of a fall at residences, businesses, or construction sites. If you or your loved one suffered a brain injury due to the carelessness or recklessness of someone else, you can seek compensation.
Here are the answers to questions most frequently asked about seeking compensation for an Edison area brain injury.
Edison Brain Injury FAQs
The Edison personal injury claims process often begins when the injured individual hires an attorney to help them seek compensation.
The attorney will investigate the accident that resulted in the brain injury to determine:
- Who caused the accident.
- How much insurance the at-fault party has, and with which carrier.
- What type of evidence is available to prove the claim.
Once there is a clear picture of the severity of the injury and any permanent disabilities the claimant is facing, their attorney will establish a value to the claim and send a demand to the at-fault party’s insurance provider. The provider can accept liability for their insured and process the claim for payment, deny the claim and notify the claimant of the reason for the denial, or make an offer to settle the claim out of court for less than its full value.
Most initial settlement offers are less than half of the claim’s full value. However, the claimant’s attorney can negotiate with the insurance provider to get them to increase the amount of their offer to a level that fairly compensates the claimant for expenses and impacts incurred due to the injury. The attorney can also provide information and guidance to their client to help them understand how their claim is valued and how much compensation is needed to cover their expenses. However, whether to accept a settlement is the claimant’s decision.
If the insurance provider fails to compensate the claim, your attorney can file a personal injury lawsuit. Filing a lawsuit does not mean the settlement negotiations process is over, as a settlement agreement can take place at any time before the court has not rendered a decision.
However, filing the lawsuit can achieve two things:
- The insurance company can no longer drag its feet on offering a fair settlement because it will result in litigation, which is expensive and uncertain.
- The claimant’s attorney gains access to the defense’s witnesses and evidence through discovery, which is part of the personal injury claims process that only occurs once your attorney files the suit.
When a claimant receives a settlement or court award, the defendant or insurer sends compensation to the attorney, who deducts the payment for their services and any other matters they have agreed to handle, such as medical liens on the settlement by healthcare or insurance providers. The remainder of the compensation, which is tax-free, is made available for the claimant.
The statute of limitations for filing a personal injury lawsuit in New Jersey is usually two years from the accident date. Failing to file in court before the deadline usually bars you from using the court process to seek compensation for your injuries.
Because the at-fault party’s insurance provider offers a settlement to avoid litigation, you’re unlikely to obtain compensation through a settlement either because the insurance company knows you cannot sue them once the statute of limitations for the claim has expired.
Traumatic brain injuries are considered catastrophic injuries. Catastrophic injuries produce a high likelihood of permanent disabilities that impair the sufferer’s ability to earn an income. Because of this likelihood, brain injury claims generally have a higher value than other personal injury claims to ensure there is enough compensation to cover current and future damages.
In addition to lost earning capacity, you can also seek compensation for:
- Medical expenses incurred from treatment and complications that often accompany traumatic brain injuries, such as seizures, infections, and damage to the blood vessels that lead to an increased risk of stroke, blood clots, and other serious issues.
- Temporary wage loss resulting from being too injured to work.
- Property damage incurred in the accident, such as repairing or replacing a vehicle damaged in a car accident.
- Physical pain and suffering resulting from the injury and its complications.
- Emotional distress from the accident and distress over impacts of a brain injury, including the inability to work, the expense of treatment, and the need for assistance with daily living tasks.
One of the most important aspects of a successful personal injury claim is the ability of the claimant to prove that someone else was liable for their injury. Liability means legal responsibility for compensating those injured in an accident caused by negligence.
A lawyer will prove negligence by showing the following elements in your case:
- The at-fault party had a duty to take reasonable actions to protect others from incurring physical harm and property damage in a given circumstance.
- The at-fault party breached their duty when they took actions (or inaction) contrary to the act of protecting others from harm.
- The breach in the duty of care caused an accident where the claimant suffered a brain injury.
The duty of care a party owes depends on the circumstance of the accident. For example, if the brain injury resulted from a traffic accident caused by a drunk driver, their duty was to drive safely and legally on public roadways. The breach of this duty occurred when they chose to drive while impaired by alcohol.
Yes. An estimated 50,000 people die each year in the U.S. due to complications from traumatic brain injuries, and 34 percent of all traumatic deaths involve injuries to the brain. If you’ve lost a loved one due to a brain injury caused by someone else’s negligence, you can seek compensation for the expenses and impact of your loss through New Jersey’s wrongful death claims process.
This process is similar to the personal injury process, but a family member of the decedent files the suit, such as the surviving spouse, children, grandchildren, parents, or siblings.
If a spouse files the claim and the deceased has no parents or children, then the state’s wrongful death and intestacy statutes require the proceeds to go entirely to the spouse. If the spouse and decedent share children, the spouse is entitled to the first $50,000 and half of the remaining estate. The children divide the remaining compensation. The same rules apply if there is a spouse and parents but no children.
The compensation that a family member can seek through a wrongful death claim includes:
- The loss of financial support that the decedent provided to their family.
- The value of household services that the decedent performed.
- The cost of medical expenses incurred during the decedent’s final injury treatment.
- Expenses related to the funeral and burial or cremation.
- The loss of comfort, care, companionship, and guidance provided by the deceased to their loved ones.
If your child cannot seek compensation for their Edison brain injury because they are a minor, you are permitted to seek compensation on their behalf until their 18th birthday. The child can seek compensation on their own for the injury by filing a personal injury claim after their 18th birthday and before their 21st birthday. This period allows for the full two-year statute of limitations to toll until they reach the age of majority and can file the claim themselves.
If your child is an adult incapacitated by a brain injury, you can seek compensation on their behalf if you have the proper power of attorney. Additionally, the court can appoint a guardian ad litem to act in your child’s best interests by obtaining compensation through a personal injury claim to cover expenses for their care.
Between the evidence required to prove liability, the medical documentation needed to show the severity of the injury, and the legal process in general, brain injury claims can be overwhelming for those who do not have experience with this type of claim.
Fortunately, personal injury attorneys commonly offer two services that ensure that legal help is available for anyone who needs it, regardless of their finances.
These services include:
- A free case evaluation, which the attorney spends evaluating a prospective client’s case, determining the strengths of their case, answering questions about the legal process, and providing more information about the firm.
- A contingent fee billing method allows you to wait to pay for your attorney’s services until/unless there is a successful outcome to your claim. If you lose your case, you owe nothing to your attorney. If you win the case, the attorney takes payment through a percentage of your award.
An Edison brain injury lawyer can provide you with an understanding of the compensation needed for catastrophic injuries and experience in the legal process involved.
They can also provide services such as:
- Helping you establish a value to your claim that accounts for the likelihood of lost earning capacity and other long-term impacts of the injury.
- Determining all sources of liability and the insurance resources that you can claim against to compensate you.
- Investigating the claim in search of evidence that can prove liability and expenses.
- Filing the claim within two years to preserve your right to use the court process to seek compensation for your injury.
- Negotiating with the at-fault party’s insurance provider to garner a settlement offer that fairly compensates you for the injury you have experienced.
- Litigation services, including the preparation of evidence exhibits, the arrangement of expert witnesses to testify on your behalf, the filing of pre-trial motions, delivery of opening and closing arguments, and the examination of witnesses.
- Assistance collecting your compensatory award from either a settlement or court decision after your claim.
- Continued representation if the defendant in your case appeals the court’s decision.
If you have suffered an Edison brain injury due to someone else’s negligent actions, an experienced brain injury lawyer can help you understand your legal options for seeking compensation. Contact an attorney for a free case evaluation and begin the process of seeking critical compensation for your injuries.
The Benefits of Hiring a Brain Injury Attorney for Your TBI Claim
Following a traumatic brain injury, you do not have to have an attorney to file a personal injury claim. Many victims choose to work directly with the responsible party’s insurance company. Attempting to handle the claim on your own, however, can present many difficulties. Many insurance companies will automatically offer a higher settlement when you have an attorney on your side to avoid a prolonged court battle.
In other cases, you may need an attorney to assist with negotiation, help you understand the full compensation you deserve for your injuries, or decrease much of the frustration you feel in dealing with the insurance company yourself. When you hire an attorney to represent you after a traumatic brain injury, you get the reassurance of knowing a dedicated, experienced team will fight to see your interests protected.
Do You Need a Traumatic Brain Injury Attorney in Edison? Call Us.
Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyer, Andrew Finkelstein
If you suffered a traumatic brain injury in an accident caused by another party’s negligence in Edison, or are caring for a loved one with a TBI, Jacoby & Meyers, LLP, located at 1929 Route 27, Edison, NJ 08817, can help you seek the compensation you deserve.
Contact us today by filling out a free case evaluation or at (732) 287-6890. One of our compassionate Edison traumatic brain injury associates can help you build a plan for the best path forward.
Edison Office
1929 NJ-27
Edison, NJ 08817
732-287-6890
Client Testimonials
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“I’m really grateful for the settlement my lawyers at Jacoby & Meyers helped me to obtain. I was badly hurt when another driver crashed into my card. The driver was carelessly. My team at Jacoby & Meyers didn’t let the reckless driver get away with it. I’m really glad I made the call to Jacoby & Meyers and would suggest anyone hurt in a car crash do the same.”
Review by: Jose V.
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