Suffering a brain injury after a motorcycle accident can be a life-altering experience, and the physical, emotional, and financial consequences can be overwhelming. Not only are you dealing with bills and economic losses, but you are also experiencing significant changes in your life. The party responsible for your injury will have a legal obligation to compensate you for the harm that they caused. However, legal cases related to brain injury can be complex in many ways. Insurance companies can make it even more difficult for you to get the compensation you deserve. They do not care that their policyholder has hurt your quality of life; for them, it is all about the money. You need someone who is there to look out for you. First, there is very little that you can do on your own when you are dealing with the effects of a brain injury. Second, you do not know how to counter the insurance company's tactics that will undermine and hamper your legal case. You must hire a brain injury lawyer after you have suffered an injury in a motorcycle accident. Your brain injury attorney can fight for you to receive a full settlement check, going up against the insurance company. Be sure to contact a brain injury lawyer as soon as possible because the legal process does not pause when you are recovering from your injuries or receiving treatment. An attorney will evaluate the full extent of your damages, negotiate with insurance companies, and guide you through the legal process, ultimately helping you receive the compensation you deserve. If you cannot contact a lawyer, have a trusted friend or family member do it on your behalf.
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Motorcycle Accidents That Can Cause Brain Injuries
As a motorcyclist, there is little that you have to protect you from a possible brain injury. A motorcycle helmet may reduce the risk of an injury and minimize the severity, but it can never fully protect you from a severe head injury.
The crash's impact can throw you off your bike, and your head may hit the pavement. You may also suffer whiplash that can cause your head to move violently and your brain to slam against the base of your skull.
Motorcycle accidents that can cause traumatic brain injuries include:
- Illegal turn accidents: The driver may not see you when they make a left turn that cuts across your path. Your motorcycle can slam into the broad side of the car when they are passing in front of you.
- Rear-end accidents: Drivers may not see a motorcycle in front of them and may slam into the back of the bike. The accident's impact can throw you over the handlebars and onto the pavement.
- Head-on collisions: A driver may end up in the wrong lane because they veered out of their lane or failed to read road signs. Head-on motorcycle accidents are some of the most serious kinds, and they will almost always result in severe injuries.
- Sideswipe accidents: The driver may not see the motorcyclist when switching lanes because the motorist has not checked their blind spot. When that happens, the driver can sideswipe the motorcyclist and force them from their bike onto the pavement.
Types of Brain Injuries After a Motorcycle Accident
The severity of your brain injury depends on its type. The brain is highly delicate and often does not heal from injuries. Once the trauma from an accident destroys brain tissue or cells, they are likely gone forever because they are incapable of repairing themselves over time. Motorcycle accident brain injuries can include:
- Diffuse axonal injury: When the brain moves inside your head, the connecting nerve fibers may tear or become sheared. This type of injury usually happens from blunt force trauma to the brain when you fall to the pavement.
- Coup-contrecoup injuries: When the brain violently shifts inside the skull and slams against the side of your head, you can suffer two different brain injuries, both at the location of the impact and on the opposite side of your brain.
- Penetrating brain injuries: A sharp object, such as a piece of debris, may pierce the brain, killing any brain tissue it penetrates.
- Concussions: Impact on or movement of the brain can result in a concussion. The force may damage the cranial nerves or stretch the blood vessels. Some concussions can heal with rest over time, while others may result in extended symptoms.
- Contusions: Trauma to the head may cause bruising. Depending on the severity of the contusion, the doctor may need to remove it through surgery.
- Hematomas: Trauma to the head can cause blood to pool under the brain. If the blood pools for a long time, it can damage brain cells and tissue. Hematomas can result in permanent brain damage and even death.
A Brain Injury Attorney Can Help You Qualify for Financial Compensation After a Brain Injury
You do not automatically have the right to financial compensation solely because you have suffered a brain injury. First, you must establish your legal right to compensation, and the prerequisite for any settlement or award is that you can prove that someone else's wrongful actions were the cause of your injury. You need persuasive proof of someone else's responsibility to qualify for financial compensation. Most often, you will need to prove that someone else was negligent. In a brain injury case, negligence means that someone did something unreasonable under the circumstances, and it caused your injury. A brain injury attorney has experience quickly getting to the bottom of your case. They know where to look for evidence and determine who you may sue, and they will interview witnesses and collect physical evidence. If you do not hire a brain injury attorney, it may be challenging to establish your entitlement to money in the first place.Your Brain Injury Attorney Can Determine How Much Compensation You Deserve
Before you file a claim or lawsuit, knowing how much to ask for from the responsible party is crucial. This amount cannot be a back-of-envelope calculation because you have the legal obligation to prove your damages with certainty. Thus, you need a precise number. However, you may not be familiar with the concepts that underlie personal injury compensation.
There is a wide variance in potential results regarding potential financial compensation. Any brain injury can result in tens of thousands of dollars in medical costs. The more severe injuries can require millions of dollars in care costs, both for medical purposes and for people to assist you with the activities of daily life when you are unable to do them for yourself.
The legal concept is that the responsible party needs to compensate you for all the harm they have caused through their negligence. It does not matter how much damage the at-fault party caused - you will have the right to compensation for all of them.
By working with an attorney, you can ensure that they will consider all relevant aspects of your brain injury when determining the compensation you deserve. They will collaborate with medical professionals, vocational experts, and economists to assess the full extent of your damages.
This comprehensive evaluation includes your current medical expenses, lost income, and potential future costs of ongoing treatment, rehabilitative therapy, and any necessary modifications to your lifestyle or home.
Non-Economic Damages Are a Large Part of Your Brain Injury Damages
Brain injury cases can be worth a considerable amount of money. Besides the medical expenses you incur, you will also get paid for the money you may have earned from your job but cannot do now because of your physical condition. The pain and suffering damages you may receive can make a brain injury settlement or award large. The responsible party must compensate you for the non-economic damages that they have caused. This category of damages can be subjective as it relies on what you report as the effects of your injuries. Brain injuries often result in high pain and suffering damages. Even insurance companies acknowledge that brain injuries are serious and may warrant a large amount of compensation. They may use the multiplier method to calculate your pain and suffering damages, affixing a multiplier to your medical expenses as high as five. However, this can fail to ensure that you receive adequate compensation for your non-economic injuries. A brain injury lawyer can help compute the amount of your non-economic damages. They will also help you tell your story to calculate your damages instead of using an arbitrary number supplied by the insurance company.Your Brain Injury Lawyer Fights for Your Compensation
Even though a brain injury settlement is high, you will still have to fight for every dollar. You may be dealing with a lifetime of damages, and your settlement or award is the one singular opportunity for which you will have to get compensation. A motorcycle accident lawyer will assess your settlement offer to see whether it fully compensates you for your injuries. If the offer is too low, your motorcycle accident lawyer will advise you to reject it. You can keep negotiating to get a higher settlement offer or take your case to trial, where a jury will decide how much compensation you may get.Your Brain Injury Lawyer Will Also Defend You from Wrongful Allegations
Insurance companies keep their eye on the tab for the money that they owe you. One of their favorite tactics to reduce the size of your settlement is to place some of the blame for the accident on the motorcyclist.
They try to take advantage of the perception that motorcyclists are riskier than the average person because they choose to get on their bikes in the first place.
The insurance companies may claim that you were not as safe as you should have been in the events surrounding the accident. If they can advance that narrative, it may cost you money, either by reducing or eliminating your settlement.
Your motorcycle accident lawyer may need to present evidence that exonerates you from blame or tells your side of the story. If the insurance company persists in blaming you, a motorcycle accident lawyer may even need to file a lawsuit in court to get a hearing from an objective jury.