QuestionHi
I recently was involved in a car accident in which the other driver was at fault. My older car was determined totaled and I missed 6 days of work and inorder to keep my job I purchased a cheap junker ($1300) as to insure my job. Though rendered unconcious at impact I only suffer from a sore neck which prevents a good night's sleep. The other drivers insurance company called and offered all medical bills and lost of pay and from what he said damages would be hanndled by someone else at their comapny (guess their specialties are divided that way). I did get a cal from that person with a very low offer. So I talked to an attorney who said **ahem** I need his representation.
Anyway, my question is will a attorney fight for my best settlement on the damage portion...cause I get the feeling he more interested in the injury portion. Btw I had no collision on my policy so my insurance wouldn't help witth recovery and only offered some tip in dealing should go it alone.
Thanks
AnswerHi Gil,
It sounds like you might need professional help with the property damage claim as well as the personal injury part. We—trial attorneys—do not usually take the average property damage claims on a contingency fee basis. I used to send a letter for free—or make a phone call for free—so long as the client hired me to do the personal injury part of the claim.
As you may know from reading on allexperts.com, Dr. Settlement is an expert on personal injury insurance claims done on a self-help or do it yourself basis. So I would usually recommend ways in which you could try to settle this on your own. BUT NOT SO in your case UNTIL you have PROOF that there is no lingering damage from your BRAIN INJURY.
That is right, I did say brain injury. Every trama to the brain that results in a loss of consciousness IS A BRAIN INJURY and there are to be expected a number of problems, referred to as post concussive syndrome.
Rather than have you rush off to join www.SettlementCentral.Com for help and instructions on making your own accident injury insurance claim, I am going to suggest instead that you seek out an attorney who has handled mild brain injury claims in the past. The reason? There are just too many symptoms that go unnoticed from concussions, yet manifest as significant problems many months later. Hence, the necessity of using only an attorney with experience in mild brain injury cases.
"But I DO NOT have any such symptoms of an injury," you say. Well, just wait. Read through the list below and see how many of those symptoms may be showing in your life.
Plus, if you did hit your head hard enough to knock you out, I would want to be examined for a jaw joint injury. Read below on that topic. Yes, you can stumble forward on your own in this claim, but you will NEVER get any compensation for your brain injury.
But your attorney can also guide you on getting to both a neuropsychologist and a dentist who specializes in temporomandibular joint syndrome (TMJ or TMD). Do NOT worry about the money. Your attorney will find the sources to pay for these two services.
Here is some background on a moderate head injury. Take a look at this list and tell yourself how many of these symptoms do you honestly still have.
How hard did you hit your head? It sounds like a pretty hard whack. So, let’s first address that topic of the most significant potential injury, your traumatic brain injury. Research that term, and especially post concussive syndrome and you will see some of the symptoms of that condition. My bet is that you DO HAVE A MODERATE BRAIN INJURY.
Let’s first examine what is a concussion and what is a loss of consciousness. You DID HAVE A CONCUSSION, that much is for sure, since you hit your head. So traumatic brain injury is in play in your claim since you suffered a brain concussion.
Post-concussion syndrome, also known as post concussive syndrome or PCS, is a set of symptoms that a person may experience for weeks, months, or even years after a concussion, a mild form of traumatic brain injury. As many as 50% of patients who have experienced concussion have PCS, and some sources say as many as 90% of patients experience post concussion symptoms. People who have had concussions may experience physical, mental, or emotional symptoms. Symptoms can appear immediately or weeks to months after the initial injury.
Physical symptoms can include:
• headache
• dizziness
• impaired balance
• nausea and/or vomiting
• fatigue or sleepiness
• inability to sleep
• decreased libido
• sensitivity to noise or light
• ringing in the ears
• double or blurred vision
• decreased sense of taste, smell, or hearing
Emotional symptoms may include:
• irritability
• anxiety
• restlessness
• depression
• lack of emotion
• emotional lability or mood swings
• lack of ability to tolerate stress or alcohol
• aggression
Cognitive or mental symptoms can include:
• amnesia or difficulty remembering things
• confusion or impaired cognition
• impaired judgment
• slowed cognitive processing
• difficulty with abstract thinking
• difficulty concentrating
• decrease in work performance
• decrease in social skills
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TMJ—temporomandibular joint syndrome: possible source for any HEADACHES.
This is another term I want you to research. When an accident victim strikes her head, there is a good possibility that the disc in the condyle, or jaw joint disc, can be displaced. One of the consequences of jaw joint displacement is headaches. All too often in my practice, the doctors treated headaches as having originated from cervical problems, when in fact, they were due to a TMJ.
http://www.lectlaw.com/med/med04.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporomandibular_joint_disorder
http://www.tmjdoctorofmaryland.com/
There are two at-home ways to see if your jaw joint is moving. First, find the spot in front of the little lobes on the middle of your ears. These are called “tragus”: http://www.infovisual.info/03/048_en.html
Now, put your fingers just in front of the tragus and over the jaw joint and open and close your mouth. If the disc is far out of place, you will feel a click. Better is for someone to stand behind you as you are seated and perform the same test. That person can feel the click if your jaw joint disc is far out of place.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT REFERRALS: If you feel that you do have any of these symptoms and they are of some significance, I WOULD INSIST UPON TREATMENT for them ASAP. It is best to get your general practitioner doctor to refer you, but you can self-refer if you have to. Your attorney can also be a source of information on good specialists. Here is what you would need: a neuropsychologist to test and to treat the mild brain injury. That is where the big mental help will come from, and of course that is where the BIG INSURANCE SETTLEMENT DOLLARS come from also.
As for the TMJ, a dentist who specializes in that field would be a lot better than an ordinary dentist. The TMJ specialist is adept at diagnosis and treatment, and of course, at making records that will help in making a good insurance settlement.
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Finding a good attorney can be difficult, but here is one tip: make sure that the attorney is a member of her state trial lawyers association http://www.settlementcentral.com/links.php
AND you MUST HAVE an attorney who has EXPERIENCE on brain injury and TMJ cases. Insist upon that information being furnished over the phone before you EVER go in for an appointment.
If you insist upon going forward on your own, then write to me again and let me know that and I will send along a series of pages with free legal information from www.SettlementCentral.Com
I hope that you do follow through as I am suggesting, Gil, because you DO need professional help as I suggested above, and there are a lot of competent doctors, attorneys, and dentists to choose from.
Best wishes for a smooth and quick recovery from your many injuries.
I trust that my time here has produced some information that has been of value to you, and thus I would respectfully request that you take the time to locate the FEEDBACK FORM on this site and leave some feedback for me.
Best Wishes,
Dr. Settlement, J.D. (Juris Doctor)
http://www.SettlementCentral.Com
