Chicago Brain Injury Attorney

Reliable Brain Injury Attorney in Chicago, Illinois

What’s more, they are often undetectable to the causal observer, and at times, even to the victim.

Traumatic brain injuries are serious conditions that affect millions of accident and assault victims every year. With the ability to affect your work, your family, and your enjoyment of life on a day-to-day basis, these injuries warrant your attention and require prompt medical diagnosis and care. At Malman Law, our Chicago personal injury lawyers are experienced in identifying the causes of traumatic brain injuries and helping victims obtain maximum compensation for their losses.

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Rely on Our Brain Injury Attorneys

You’ve suffered a brain injury and have a lot of recovery ahead of you. This makes turning to your trusted brain injury attorney to cover all the following important tasks key:

• Let your attorney communicate with the insurance company for you. While they’ll want you to make a statement, it’s a trap – they’re hoping to trip you up while you’re at your most vulnerable.
• Your attorney will help to ensure that you have a solid understanding of the legal process and your role in it. This can help you avoid some of the pitfalls that commonly derail claims. For example, the insurance company will be trolling your social media activity, which makes it an excellent idea to give social media a pass while your claim is pending.
• Your attorney will skillfully negotiate with the insurance company for a settlement that affords you the compensation you need to address the long-lasting and ongoing consequences of a brain injury.
• Your attorney will be well prepared to take your case to court if the insurance company is more interested in keeping your settlement low than engaging in fair negotiations.

While you can assist your attorney in building your strongest claim in every way possible, you should rely on them to do the heavy lifting and to get the job done.

Brain Injury Overview

Brain injuries are unpredictable and sneaky. They can be difficult to detect early on, and even the victims themselves can have a difficult time identifying their injuries. Our brains are so complicated and delicately wired that even medical professionals with top credentials are sometimes left with nothing but well-informed guesses when it comes to treating brain injuries. It’s important to note, however, that those who treat brain injuries are, nonetheless, held to careful safety and quality standards.

If someone else’s negligence causes you or someone you love to experience a brain injury, it’s time to consult with a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer expert on brain injuries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that concussions and other traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) directly affect how the brain functions, and they are a primary cause of both death and disability in this country. These brain injuries are often referred to as a silent epidemic because they often fail to present with obvious symptoms or with any physical signs, which leaves victims far more prone to forgo or delay the treatment and care they need.

TBI statistics shared by the CDC include the following:

• In 2021, about 190 people in this country died every day as a result of TBIs.
• There were about 69,473 TBI-related fatalities in 2021.
• In a recent year, more than 223,000 people were hospitalized in this country for TBIs.

These astounding numbers fail to account for the many TBI victims who don’t seek treatment or who are seen by their primary doctors, by urgent care, or in the ER.

Further, the five-year outcome for those who suffer serious TBIs and require hospitalization is grim. Consider the following:

• Some patients succumb to their injuries.
• Some people experience worsened conditions.
• You might maintain the same level of symptoms for a long time.
• Only about 26 percent experience improvement.

No matter your situation, our TBI lawyers can help.

The Primary Causes of Brain Injuries

CDC also shares statistics regarding the most common causes of TBIs, which generally involve a blow, bump, or jolt to the head that doesn’t necessarily leave an external mark. Consider the following primary causes:

• Almost half of all TBI-related hospitalizations are caused by falls, such as slip and fall accidents.
• Another major cause of TBIs and other brain injuries is traffic accidents of every kind, including car, truck, motorcycle, bike, and pedestrian.

Each of these represents a common form of personal injury claim because both are often based on the negligence of others – such as the negligence of a commercial property owner or manager in the case of a slip and fall accident and the negligence of another driver in the case of a traffic accident.

Do I Have a Traumatic Brain Injury?

Traumatic brain injuries occur when a sudden impact, violent shaking, or penetration of the skull disrupts the functioning of your brain. There are two types of TBI:

• Closed traumatic brain injuries, which do not penetrate the skill; and
• Open traumatic brain injuries, which occur when an object penetrates the skull and enters the brain.

Open brain injuries are further classified into “penetrating injuries,” which involve an object such as a knife or metal shard becoming lodged in the brain, and “perforating injuries,” which involve an object like a bullet entering and exiting the skull.

All traumatic brain injuries are classified as either “mild” (e.g., a concussion that does not result in loss of consciousness) or “severe” (e.g., an injury that results in long-term memory loss or permanent brain damage).

Symptoms and When to See a Doctor

Because TBIs are so potentially dangerous and because they are so difficult to detect, you should always seek medical attention whenever you’re in an accident that either involves impact to your head, or that causes your head to shake back and forth on your neck, such as in a rear-end car accident. The threat is simply too great to ignore.

While every TBI is utterly unique, and while you may not even notice any symptoms to begin with – or your symptoms may be difficult to pinpoint – the Mayo Clinic shares that there are symptoms that often accompany these injuries, including the following, which progress from less to more serious:

• Headaches
• The onset of fatigue or drowsiness
• The onset of nausea or vomiting
• Speech difficulties
• The onset of dizziness or a loss of balance
• Sensory concerns like ringing in the ears, blurred vision, changes in smell, or a bad taste in the mouth
• A newly acquired sensitivity to sound or light
• A brief loss of consciousness
• A shift in mood or outright mood swings
• Difficulty concentrating or memory concerns
• The onset of depression or anxiety
• Sleep disturbances
• A longer loss of consciousness
• Headaches that won’t go away or that worsen with time
• Persistent nausea or vomiting
• Dilation of one or both pupils
• Seizures or convulsions
• Drainage of clear fluid from the ears or nose
• An inability to awaken from sleep
• The onset of numbness in the fingers or toes
• A serious loss of coordination
• Confusion that is profound
• A newly acquired combativeness or agitation –or any other newly acquired behavior that is alarming
• Slurred speech
• Slipping into a coma or another form of disordered consciousness

It’s critical to make the point that even brain injuries labeled as mild are serious injuries that you should never underestimate. The term “mild” is simply used relative to moderate and serious, which are the terms frequently used to indicate life-altering and often-fatal brain injuries.

Malman Law’s founder Attorney Steven Malman has over 30 years of experience handling personal injury, nursing home, medical malpractice, premises liability, construction and workers’ compensation cases.

STEVE J. MALMAN

Founding Attorney

Your Related Losses From Brain Injuries

The physical, financial, and emotional losses – or legal damages – that victims of brain injuries face are often so extensive that they’re difficult to exaggerate.

Medical Costs

As mentioned, brain injuries have a tendency to go silent until they become far more challenging to treat effectively. The medical expenses associated with these injuries often last a lifetime, and secondary health concerns or complications are common. Those who suffer more serious brain injuries can require long-term assistance with the activities of daily living in addition to a host of other costly expenses that are unique to injuries this disruptive.

Lost Income

A brain injury can affect your ability to do your job, but it can also completely derail your career. The more seriously your career is affected, the greater your financial loss is likely to be. It’s also important to consider that job losses of this nature can also lead to emotional fallout, which makes this component of loss that much more difficult to overcome.

Pain and Suffering

The physical and emotional pain and suffering you experience as a result of a brain injury can be so immense that it’s nearly impossible to adequately assess. Many victims of TBIs describe the effects as disrupting their sense of self, which is obviously a profound loss.

One of your brain injury attorney’s primary tasks is accurately assessing the full scope of your losses, which is paramount to your overall recovery.

The Elements of Your Brain Injury Claim

In order to bring a successful brain injury claim that fairly compensates you for your losses in their entirety and that paves the way for your most complete recovery, you’ll need to establish four primary elements, including:

• The at-fault party owed you a duty of care, which means that they had a responsibility for your safety – the way other motorists, business owners, and medical professionals do.
• The at-fault party breached their responsibility to you, which means they were negligent in some way.
• The at-fault party’s negligence was the direct cause of the accident that caused you to suffer a brain injury.
• You suffered losses that the law recognizes, as discussed above in Your Related Losses.

A savvy brain injury attorney will build your strongest claim by skillfully highlighting each of these primary elements.

The At-Fault Party’s Negligence

Personal injury claims like head injury claims are based on negligence, which can come in all too many forms. For example, if you suffered a head injury in a traffic accident, common forms of negligence include:

• The other driver’s failure to follow the rules of the road
• The other driver’s excess speed
• The other driver’s aggression
• The other driver’s impairment
• The other driver’s exhaustion
• The other driver’s distraction

If, instead, you were injured in a slip and fall accident, the commercial property owner or manager will be held to the same duty of care that other property owners and managers are held to in similar situations.

Your Claim will Hinge on Evidence

Your brain injury attorney will turn to evidence in defense of your rights and in pursuit of your rightful compensation, and this evidence can take all the following forms:

• The police report in the case of a traffic accident and the accident report in the case of a slip and fall accident
• The testimony of eyewitnesses
• Physical evidence from the scene of the accident, which can come in a variety of forms
• Expert testimony from those with expertise in brain injuries or in another topic that is relevant to your claim
• Photos, videos, security footage, and dashcam footage – as relevant to your claim
• Your doctor’s testimony, as well as your pertinent medical records
• The testimony of those close to you who can attest to the losses you’ve experienced and the emotional effects you’ve endured

Challenges with the Insurance Company

You’ll likely file your brain injury claim with the at-fault party’s insurance provider, and it’s important to understand that this company is a for-profit enterprise that is in the business of making a lot of money. This means that its focus is always on minimizing settlements like yours. Some common techniques that insurance companies often turn to in their efforts include the following:

• Denying brain injury claims right from the start – in the hope that claimants will simply go away
• Offering early settlements that don’t come anywhere near covering claimants’ complete losses but that they are too desperate to refuse
• Making the already-complex claims process more so
• Making the already lengthy claims process more so
• Denying their policyholders’ negligence
• Focusing on what they see as the claimants’ over-exaggeration of losses
• Picking apart claims to the point that claimants give up

Our brain injury attorneys have seen it all before and are well-equipped to take on the insurance company and its overly aggressive tactics. An important point to make here is that if the insurance company makes a settlement offer, accepting before consulting with a seasoned brain injury attorney who is familiar with your claim is a mistake that can leave you without the resources you need to reach your most complete recovery.

Contact an Experienced Chicago Brain Injury Attorney from Malman Law

Brain injuries are some of the most difficult we encounter in the field of personal injury law, and the related losses tend to be some of the most extensive. While you might be focused on your physical recovery right now, always remember you have limited time to take legal action for your injuries. There are deadlines for filing lawsuits, and evidence can weaken or become more difficult to obtain over time.

Now is the time to begin the legal process. Our compassionate Chicago brain injury lawyers at Malman Law dedicate their impressive practice to helping victims of brain injuries obtain the compensation they need to journey forward toward their most complete recoveries. We’re proud of our two decades of exemplary service and the millions of dollars in compensation we’ve recovered for our valued clients.

For more information about what we can do to help you, please don’t wait to contact us online or call our office today.