Some injuries force an accident victim to deal with specific consequences. Any one of those same consequences could have an on-going influence on the victim’s life. Hence, a lawyer tends to place great value on that sort of long-term injury. What are some examples of long-term injuries?
• Damage to the spinal cord
• A traumatic brain injury
• Loss of a limb
• Severe burns
• Disfigurement of the body in some fashion
• Large areas of scarring
• Physical changes that disrupt the victim’s life; frequently, these also create a need for future medical treatment.
Basic facts about long-term injuries
The greater the degree of severity, with respect to the amount of harm done to an accident victim, the more extensive becomes the list of accident-caused of damages. When attempting to estimate an injury’s value, lawyers on both sides of a dispute must strive to understand the needed medical treatment, both at the present time, and in the future.
Sources of information on the effect of a long-term injury
A Personal Injury Lawyer in London would seek advice from both medical and economic experts, in order to gauge the cost for a plaintiff’s future care. Ideally, those experts should offer information on the extent to which a given client’s injury could affect the same client’s ability to continue with the his or her chosen method for earning a living.
Plaintiffs that work closely with their lawyer should create a diary or journal, and record both the frequency and duration for any amount of discomfort. If the level of a recorded discomfort increases to the point where it becomes a disruptive force, then that should be noted in the client’s journal/diary.
A possible source of misinformation
Misinformation might come from the defendant’s legal team, if the plaintiff’s attorney has failed to gain an adequate level of knowledge, with respect to the client’s injury. That misinformation could affect the size of the settlement, if it could suggest that the plaintiff helped to cause the injury.
Misinformation could affect the size of a court’s reward, if it could suggest that the plaintiff’s medical condition should not influence the course of the same plaintiff’s career. Some long-term injuries do hamper the career of the person that needs to live with that particular condition.
The existence of a medical problem introduces the possibility for complications. During such complications, the affected individual might be unable to work. That would certainly be true, if the remedy involved making a surgical correction. That possibility would cause a disruption in the life of the person with the long-term injury. As a result, it should be taken into consideration, when attempting to estimate the same injury’s value. A good lawyer should make note of that fact.