Proving Unique Injuries in Your Personal Injury Case

Proving Unique Injuries in Your Personal Injury Case

Proving Unique Injuries in Your Personal Injury Case

I’m Ed Smith, a Sacramento Injury Lawyer. Children are taught from an early age that no two individuals are alike.  We encourage our children to celebrate their individuality – what makes them unique individuals. Just as no two people are alike, no two personal injury victims are alike. Victims who are injured in car accidents under similar circumstances may exhibit completely different injuries: one may suffer neck and spine injuries while another is able to walk away with just a few bruises. Even individuals injured in the same injury accident may exhibit different injuries. So, why do some jurors expect all injury victims to look the same after a particular injury?

Common Types of “Unique” Injuries

Personal injury cases involve an injured plaintiff seeking compensation from a person or entity he or she deems to be responsible for causing the plaintiff’s injuries. The vast majority of plaintiffs seek the same types of compensation (although the amounts sought will vary from one case to the next): compensation for medical bills, ongoing treatment costs, lost wages, and pain and suffering are all commonly-requested types of damages.

Creative Presentation in Proving Unique Injuries in your personal injury case

In some cases, however, the plaintiff may have been injured in unique or atypical ways. These plaintiffs are also seeking compensation for their injuries; however, their cases usually require an additional amount of investigation and creative presentation to help jurors understand the nature of these plaintiffs’ losses and how the compensation they are requesting is appropriate. Some “unique” injury situations include:

• The plaintiff with no observable physical injuries. “Pain and suffering” damages are commonly requested when a plaintiff has suffered an actual physical injury, but they may also be requested when the plaintiff suffers only psychological harm. The shock, humiliation, embarrassment, and/or depression that injury victims experience after a personal injury accident is not lessened just because there may be no permanent injuries or lasting disfigurement. Mental health professionals may need to be relied upon to help educate the jury about the mental condition(s) plaguing the victim and the reality of these conditions in order for the plaintiff to recover compensation.

Multi-million Dollar Awards

The plaintiff asking for the multi-million dollar award. Some jurors and community members view the plaintiff asking for large sums of compensation (and the attorneys that represent them) with a skeptical eye. This is especially true in poorer areas of the country, where the requested compensation may be several times greater than the average yearly wage of the jury. Defendants in these types of cases waste no time calling the plaintiff greedy, dishonest, and only after a “quick payday.” It takes a confident and skilled attorney to admit to the jury that a multimillion dollar compensation award is being sought and to educate and persuade the jury that such an award is appropriate under the circumstances of his or her client’s case.

• The plaintiff and the “unusual” therapeutic procedure. Medical advances continue to be made at lightening speed. Some of the procedures used to treat certain conditions several decades ago have been replaced by new, more effective procedures. Unfortunately, many jurors are not likely to be aware of these new procedures. When they hear that a plaintiff has been treated using a new procedure, the jury may question whether such a procedure was necessary and whether the plaintiff is entitled to compensation. Medical experts may be needed to testify for the plaintiff so the jury can understand why the particular course of treatment the plaintiff underwent was medically necessary.

• The plaintiff and the undiagnosed injury. Some injuries (such as traumatic brain injuries that are mild in nature) may go undiagnosed because the symptoms of these injuries closely mirror the symptoms of other conditions. Failing to diagnose these conditions usually means that the plaintiff is unable to recover full and fair compensation. In such a case, the injured client’s attorney will need to closely examine the evidence available to him or her and consider the attorney’s observations of the client’s mannerisms to determine whether additional testing or evaluation is warranted to uncover conditions and injuries that may not have been accurately diagnosed.

Sacramento Personal Injury and Trial Lawyer

I’m Ed Smith a Sacramento Injury Lawyer. If you’ve been seriously injured in an accident, please call me at (916) 921-6400 for free, friendly advice.  Elsewhere, dial toll free at (800) 404-5400.

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I’m a member of  the Million Dollar Advocates Forum.  These are trial lawyers who’ve  won multiple cases worth over a million dollars.

I have practiced personal injury law exclusively since 1982.

Check out my track record of success on my Past Verdicts and Settlements page.

Founder of the leading personal injury website: www.autoaccident.com.