The complex case, the plaintiff is an attorney may face where his client suffers a brain injury due to an accident. And 'difficult because 9 out of 10 cases, head injuries, wounds that are not visible to ordinary people to participate. As a jury will consider that your clients have suffered a trauma to the brain?
Of course there is the simple case brain injury in which the plaintiff suffered a fractureHis skull and all the experts agree that there is structural damage caused to the applicant's symptoms.
The problems are in those cases do not show where the physical damage, except for a CT or MRI. The actor often appears normal, and this phenomenon can be terribly misleading. He or she can speak well, and that is to overcome a problem even bigger. But the brain, like an atom if broken or split, leading to an explosion of misery and pain that is horrible. Whenthe brain is damaged, there is a tool for the surgeon to come and solve the problem. We're on the nature and culture and the ability to compensate.
Family and friends of the person who receives a brain injury is the destruction times as much or more that the victim feel pain.
The overall objective of a brain injury lawyer in the case to the jury, which for organic damage has occurred, to convince that is permanent, and thatthe main reason for the deterioration of your customers.
So much to prove liability in relation to writing, the economic loss and loss of family neglect case-This document is intended to cover aspects of the preparation of a brain injury for the prosecution.
Under case
Support for a brain injury is to do justice to an investment dramatic for a lawyer in many ways.
Consider the following case:
Your client, Mrs. Reynolds, was a pilot in aAuto accident on a relatively busy road occurred. The incident happened during the night. Mrs. Reynolds procedure was on a street when a van pulled out a side street to make a turn to the left. Mrs. Reynolds has struck the right front corner of the van, the driver of the van off line. Both drivers were seriously injured. When the ambulance, Mrs. Reynolds was dazed, but able to respond to verbal and physical stimuli. Scored 11 out of 15 on the Glascow Coma Scale for the loss of theirConsciousness. He was lucky to survive the accident.
The first visit
When the first customer to visit the lawyer, the lawyer usually has little or no information on the case. The first meetings are very important. Both the client and the lawyer have the same story. Customers for the most part, unfamiliar with the complexities of the legal system and do not know the lawyer, so that usually a bit 'anxious and restless. Advocatewill be familiarized with the system and a case like this should help to facilitate the customer.
During the interview, the lawyer thinks of two central issues in the case of an accident: liability and damages, as a customer or not thought to tell any number of things they try to the whole story. Therefore, the lawyer must be in an initial interview is a good listener and a persuasive speaker.
Once mutual trust is created, the lawyer and the client can work welltogether.
The customer must obtain information from the lawyer to:
"You have to handle cases like this before?" ... "How?"
"You know the medical aspects of a case in which there is a brain injury?"
"You wrote all the articles?"
"What references can be delivered?"
Finally, the lawyer or the client must be convinced that real harm to the examination of the test more reliable. It 'importantTalk with relatives and friends are most likely your clients to find out how customers was before the accident. In cases of brain injury, it is often said that his client was not running high concentration before the collision and is now able, in a busy environment. You can also say that his client is no longer the same person lacks the motivation and tiredness. Finally, you said that his client has changed his personality, is easily frustratedand mistrust, only rarely appears before the accident.
Customers dissatisfied with counsel before
Many candidates who have suffered traumatic brain injuries have unrealistic expectations about how their actions must be treated or how to turn on. Most lawyers are offended by recurrent brain that have legal advice that previously occupied dissatisfied contacted. The most common complaints heard is that theI do not understand this law, the client-cerebral trauma and the problems arising from such violation. Lawyers must be protected to the adoption of these cases. The lawyer must, in most cases, customers receive support for the former lawyer, before granting them to discuss the case.
Document scanning
The need to build his case in court, you will receive all relevant documents relating to injuries of your customers. BrainInjuries will compile a lawyer, huge amounts of documents. Medical, employment, education and income from injury to provide documentation includes most of the evidence.
From the outset, it must thoroughly investigate the facts surrounding the lawyer is the case. Received a copy of the report of motor vehicle accidents and police cooperation between states, a basic knowledge of the facts of the accident. If responsibility is a problem that a researchermust be maintained to any witnesses, the police and visit the scene of accident reconstruction support interview.
Proof of damage Vehicular
If your customer is the vehicle or the defendant, apparently damaged, pictures of damage to the vehicle are powerful. Photos can be replaced by the witnesses, taken from newspapers, the client, family members, police or insurance for property damage to finish. Obvious damage to the interior of the car causedthrough the head of your customers must be visually detected, and any witnesses who can do that then discussed.
If there is no damage to the vehicle, biomechanical engineer, estimate a rate supported by the engineering reconstruction can explain how the force of the collision can cause brain damage, despite the minimal damage.
Photos injuries
Not surprisingly, the jury is easier to believe that damage the brain, when the head or wounded in the face. NotThere is often a very early picture available, which record blacks eyes and cuts on his head. These photographs are an important match is no evidence that are particularly effective when enlarged or when projected.
Later, as an expert in the area of the brain that is involved, is to explain, is convincing up the image and experts have confirmed that the parties involved in the general area of the brain, destruction orContusions.
Ambulance call report
The first record of the review is the report called for an ambulance. When the ambulance call report shows no evidence of a brain injury that includes, constitute a demonstrative is the goal. This test, once shared with a judge, it is important for describing the condition of his client shortly after the incident.
You can highlight a reference to disorientation or recording of a period of unconsciousness. Accordingmay be a replay of the bruising or wounds to the head. Finally, we want to emphasize the Glasgow Coma Scale that supports your case.
All comments of the experts on violations of your customers will find the report called an ambulance, and for this reason, this document may be one of the most important tests of the case.
Hospital Records
Subsequently, the emergency must be to record the hospital, was hit when customers are carefully selected. The records contain l 'the history of the first and the notes, the nurses and assessments, while in the hospital. Records, which is a low Glasgow Coma Scale rating, disorientation or contribute to the persistence of the injury in hospital. Often a patient with an acquired brain injury can be violent or aggressive on the hospital staff who can demonstrate injury to the frontal lobe.
Hospital records can also be used to show the consistency of symptoms, Client. For example, if the customer complains of a headache and takes the nurses show the same complaint, this may at a later stage of your customer complaints than other specialists.
Radiological Detection
From the date of arrival of patients in the emergency room with a follow-up treatment, a series of complex tests can be done to help demonstrate that the brain injury.
There are two types of neurological tests: those who understand the structure of the test> Brain and those that investigate the function of the brain. CT and MRI look at the structure of the brain. The electroencephalogram (EEG), SPECT scan, PET, to study evoked and brain function.
MRI and CT
MRI and CT of the brain radiographically into slabs. MRI is that with magnetic fields, while the CT uses X-rays. MRI provides more detail than the CT. Accordingly, Brain Damageas seen on MRI as small as 1-2 mm are large, can escape detection by a CT scan. CT better than MRI in detecting fresh blood in and around the brain, while MRI is better than that tests of the remains of the old blood hemorrhage, hemosiderin. TC is often repeated to ensure that a brain injury is not always complete, especially early in treatment, ER.
Being so highly sensitive, MRI often detects clinically silent(asymptomatic) "Brain Damage" in the normal population. For example, when you're older to have degenerated myelin in the white substance on the common (myelin, a jacket of insulation around axons to help them conduct their electrical discharges quickly), the axon. An MRI can detect as myelin degeneration of white matter hyperintensities. MRI is also sensitive) compared to brain atrophy (shrinkage, another normal phenomenon as we age. Excessive numbers of white matter hyperintensities orexcessive atrophy signal a possible neurologic disease or injury.
PET (Positron Emission Tomography)
PET scan is based on the fact that the brain uses glucose for energy. Through the appointment of a molecule of glucose with a radioactive "tag" and then inhaling radioactive glucose and positioning of the patient's head with a large geiger counter able to identify areas of abnormal brain glucose underutilizing. Because cyclotrons are needed to generateradioactive gas, the PET scan is not available everywhere.
Scan SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography)
SPECT scanning is similar to PET scanning, a radioactive chemical is administered intravenously to the patient, but the radioactive chemical remains in the blood and the brain. As a result of the SPECT scan maps of blood supply to the brain. Why damaged brain tissue in general agrees with its blood vessels, focalVascular defects on a SPECT scan evidence of brain damage. The advantage of a SPECT scan on a PET is readily available and relatively cheap. Recent studies have abnormal SPECT scans after head trauma when the CT and MRI showed normal, suggesting that the SPECT scan is more sensitive to brain injury then either CT or MRI. Why are radioactive substances in PET and SPECT scans are used for all parts of the implementedCreating vascular tree, SPECT and PET are used with caution in patients of childbearing age.
Obviously there are some important limitations of medical science for the discovery of the complexity of brain injury. As a lawyer, we must not forget that most judges rely on expert testimony in their deliberations on the case. Most jurors will get brain damage for the first time. The lawyer should remind the jurorsExpert testimony that, although science has come a long way, is still in the primitive. This allows greater confidence in the lay witnesses, who describe how the applicant has positioned itself to be changed.
Referral to a specialist for an assessment
While the actor is probably a number of experts, since his accident, there are often occasions, have not seen where the applicant, the payment of adequate medical care. For this reason, you probably need to find lawyerstheir clients for additional experts for further clinical evaluation.
Often, showing that customers are caused by an injury acquired brain injury, a lawyer to retain a neuropsychologist. The test results are open to interpretation and debate. If the customer moves in general, speaks well and seems perfectly healthy in a structured environment in the classroom can be expected that, contrary to defense experts, by your experts.
OtherExperts will be maintained, is not part of the team of medical treatment, some of which may be professional experts, life care planners and economists.
Discovery
Before a case goes to court, know the lawyers on both sides, not just the case but also the other lateral position on all issues. The system was designed to avoid surprises. During the discovery of a lawyer is under oath, questions of the other party. This form of examination of witnessesboth the plaintiff and defendant with the clearer view of the evidence the entire process. The views of the depositor will be "closed" and difficult to change later during the study.
With a client injured brain is important that they remember that all questions are answered question, as if they had a full and accurate memory of the evidence. Often the opposite is true. The lawyer of a brain injured client must take sufficient time in advance to preparetheir clients for such a test, that the evidence is not distorted.
Remember that the defense will try to get the credibility of his client, with the eligibility criteria established control that contradict your case, or transfer the customer data, so that later undermined by reports of control or is contradicted.
Lay witnesses
Lay witnesses are people who have known the applicant either before or after the date of injury. Theseare family members, friends, neighbors and employees of the applicant to help validate the testimony of the applicant and experts in a study. These witnesses can be very convincing, because their testimony is easy to understand and often can describe subtle lesions of the applicant lively.
Developing a theme
The theme is the word or phrase that appears repeatedly in the dispute to the attention of the jury to focus on what the case is really about. Selectone or more topics of fundamental importance. The topics are like magnets, attracting more reserved. You must be designed to induce both rational and emotional reactions in jurors. The wording should study the issues, advocates are focusing on facts that can be expressed by a high impact resistance due to high quality voice and demonstrations presented. Arguments that emphasize "quality of life" issues tend to cases of brain damage because of the serious consequences of a dominant positionBrain injury have on the lives of individual applicants.
There's nothing more to convince the jury of an actual organic lesion as evidence showing that the actor was a successful and happy life before the accident informed. A program is often evidence of a lack of medical care and the consistent use of pre-injury convincing.
Settlement before trial
Most cases resolve before the test.After an application is filed, and the thing goes, but before the trial, the parties may agree to resolve. When this happens, one side agrees to pay a sum of money to each other, and the other side agrees to accept as full payment for the injuries suffered. In general, a solution is a good thing. In a solution, not lost. The insurance company pays nothing, maybe a little 'less than expected by the applicant, but avoid the risk of a trial. In all studies, there are large risksboth sides.
The great challenge in a case Mild Brain Injury
Insurance adjuster, and most defense lawyers jaundiced view of one of mild traumatic brain injury. There were some comments that it is the whiplash "of the new millennium." Despite this cynicism, the lawyer must look to a case of brain injury for evidence of biological damage to the defeat of defense following standards:
No lossConscience: The applicants, who had mild brain injuries often do not experience true loss of consciousness to help. Help of experts witnesses, evidence that the loss of consciousness, confusion, dizziness, or as a result of trauma can cause neurological problems.
The violation was for a long time problems of pre-existing emotional incident.
The injury, if any, is only one emotion that can be cured with treatment.
NegativeNeuroimaging results: The lack of positive results of studies such as CT or MRI should not be treated as evidence of lack of injury.
The customer is Simulation: The defense will insist that the plaintiff produces symptoms deliberately false or exaggerated by the desire to motivate will receive financial compensation through litigation. Usually the simulation can be found in psychological tests.
Trial
If the amount of money offered byInsurance is not accepted, the applicant will then take the matter to the Court. An attempt at a risky undertaking: on one side can get a lot of money or to win something. In any case, the cost of a process can be extremely costly for the loser.
Tests may be decided by the judge alone or by judge and jury. While neglect of the person who caused the accident, there is always the presence of the insurance company behind the scenes, since they are responsibleProtection of the debtor to the limits of their policies.
If you are the jury, believing that an accident occurred, which must find a way to overcome the appearance of normality, as the applicant does not provide evidence. One way to do this is to graphically explain the mechanism of injury, so that the jury appreciated knowing that the brain can permanently without permanent changes to the appearance of the head or may be injured in his face. What better way to explain theMechanism of injury to show, either through the use of medical-legal illustrations, animations and other artwork.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the presentation of a case of brain damage extremely difficult. The lawyer should make such cases, with the long-term effects of brain lesions known. If the prosecutor does not cover all facets of the case, with such witnesses and other evidence, is himself and hisClients a disservice.