AboutDoctor Settlement Expertise 27 years of front line plaintiff`s trial lawyer experience in PERSONAL INJURY INSURANCE CLAIMS. Along with other attorneys and insurance adjusters, we have created a website to help injured people settle their own personal injury claims. With the help from feedback from hundreds of satisfied members, www.settlementcentral.com has become THE AUTHORITY for Internet personal injury insurance claim settlements. I am humbled and honored if people can benefit from my experience and current volunteer work in helping injured people. I hope I can explain things in a manner that is useful for the questioner. If not, do not hesitate to e-mail me and I will take a second shot at it! Best Wishes for your physical and financial recovery.
Experience
Life Experience: 27 years of front line plaintiff's trial lawyer experience
Organizations: American Trial Lawyers Association (AAJ)
Washington State Trial Lawyers Association
Awards and Honors:
I am humbled and honored everytime I am selected to help injured people. And when people give feedback that they have benefited from my experience and current volunteer efforts, then that is a double honor and award for me.
Question On Thursday September 18 2008, I was at Target in Shakopee Minnesota. I took my four year old son into the bathroom. The floor was covered with water. I carefully took him into one of the stalls and went into the next stall. When I came out to help wash his hands as well as my own, I slipped and hit my head on the sink. I blacked out and fell backwards. I ended up with a concussion and bruising on various places on my body. I was taken by ambulance to the emergency room where they performed some x-rays and a CT. Everything came out normal except for the fact I had a concussion and bruising. The next two days I had nausea, headache, dizziness, loss of sleep, temporary memory loss and loss of balance. I went back to the ER two days later because of these symptoms. They did another CT and it was normal, but referred me to a Traumatic Brain Injury Specialist. There was a witness who saw me fall and saw the water on the floor. My mother tried to take pictures, however the officer would not allow her to do so. The person on duty filled out an incident report and I have not heard from Target yet. It is now Sunday evening. What should I do next? Should I contact and attorney right away, or wait to see what Target has to say. How long should I wait. They are responsible for my medical bills correct? Do I have a claim for damages such as pain and suffering?
Thanks
CMD
Answer Hi Christine,
I am sorry to hear of this horrible accident, and I hope that you will be restored to good health soon. However, as you will read below, there are a lot of side effects to a brain injury. In light of the seriousness of your claim, I am going to put forth a lot of time to give you much information at this stage. My bottom line will be to interview two or three attorneys WHO ARE EXPERIENCED IN BRAIN INJURY CLAIMS, and to hire one ASAP.
The Internet says: Dr. Settlement knows personal injury claims very well and can teach people to settle their own insurance claims at www.SettlementCentral.Com. However, in this case, I would NEVER advise you to use my website alone to try to settle. There are three reasons for this:
1. Your injuries are so serious that you will need to be monitored for appropriate doctor care, and only an experienced attorney who has handled brain injury cases can do that. In other words, if you were my client, I would work with your doctor to ensure that you were tested for post concussive syndrome AND I would have you examined by a temporomandibular joint syndrome (TMJ or TMD) EXPERT (this is NOT your general dentist). Without an attorney guiding these referrals, they are NOT going to happen. Most brain injury doctors will not even think to make the TMJ referral, even though the symptoms of the victim fit into the pattern to be expected from such a jaw joint injury.
2. There is a serious liability issue in this claim. Read below to see how your own negligence will cut into the value of your claim. In this case, an aggressive attorney will be necessary to boost up the value of your claim. My guess is that your attorney will have to file a lawsuit to get to the discovery phase wherein she can learn about any plumbing problems and/or continued leaks in that washroom, and/or whether or not the store had an inspection program that was being followed.
3. The value of a brain injury that is more than mild can fluctuate a lot, depending upon the quality of the proof amassed by the claimant. In a brain injury claim, there is always the probability of depression or other brain challenges that will prevent the victim from making a full presentation of all evidence as she might if her injury had been just broken bones instead.
Hence, my advice is to interview some attorneys who have handled brain injury claims and pick one ASAP.
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I want you to think about some of the aspects of post concussive syndrome and possible TMJ injury.
How hard did you hit your head? It sounds like a pretty hard whack, so that is a SIGNIFICANT BRAIN TRAUMA. 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.
Let’s first examine what is a consussion 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 she 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
LOSS OF CONSCIOUSNESS—not essential to diagnosis of post concussive syndrome, but sometimes the length of time unconscious will be used to judge the degree of the brain injury. In your case, this is a MOST SIGNIFICANT FACT SHOWING at the least moderate brain injury.
It sounds like you DO have an excellent doctor to help with the brain injury. However, if you were my client, I would want to be sure that you saw a neuropsychologist to undergo a battery of testing. This will help to document your injuries for treatment. But those results also go a long way in bringing value to your claim.
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TMJ or TMD—temporomandibular joint syndrome: possible source for 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: An 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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Premises Liability Issues.
There is NOT clear-cut liability in this case. What if the patron before you spilled water all over the place? Is the store liable if you fall in it? What negligence is there on the part of the store?
Premises Liability (Slip Or Trip And Fall Accidents) http://www.settlementcentral.com/page3006.htm is an excellent review of premises liability or slip and fall accident confusion as to liability. There are three good examples on that page to show you the difference between liable property owners and those whom one cannot sue.
The store IS NOT AN INSURER OF YOUR SAFETY. You can recover ONLY if you can show that the store was negligent, and even then, your award will be reduced TO THE EXTENT OF YOUR OWN NEGLIGENCE IN FAILING TO WATCH WHERE YOU WERE WALKING. The store will raise this defense in an effort to reduce your award.
The duty of the store toward its patrons is one of affirmative obligation to inspect and to remove any dangers, such as a large spill of water in a washroom. But there is also an affirmative duty to protect the patrons from a foreseeable risk if the cost of that protection is reasonable. In this case, the cost of providing periodic inspections in the washrooms is minimal. So that would indicate negligence on the part of the store, ASSUMING your attorney could prove that the water was there for some period of time.
Maybe there was a leak in the facility. Discovery by the attorney will reveal that. Also, was there an inspection program in place, and if so, was it being followed?
Now, once again let’s look at your own liability. It will not defeat your claim, but your negligence can be used to reduce the amount of your award. So here is your lesson: assume that they will claim that you are at least one-third at fault, and be prepared to defend on the basis set forth above.
DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED about that defense, but just be aware that it will be raised since your claim has great value. You might return to that store and see what kinds of eye-level signs or other distractions were there that prevented you from watching where you were walking. They will say that you were on alert as to the danger, and yet you failed to take precautions. Do not be upset with me for telling you this: better to learn it now instead of later.
Your attorney will fight this for you. But here is some info in case you have given a statement or you are about to give a statement: DO NOT DO SO UNTIL YOU HAVE YOUR ATTORNEY BY YOUR SIDE. There is too much at stake here, and a skilled questioner can lay your claim bare.
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Be Prepared for the Kinds of Questions they Might Ask of you if you have not yet had a Deposition. An adjuster will try to record you. Of course we would like to avoid giving any recorded statement, so WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE AN ATTORNEY. Or, if you think you must go ahead, then at least ask the questioner to send a list of questions since you do not think well in quick pressure situations due to your brain injury. Fat chance she will do that, but you could try. At a minimum, you need to be prepared for an interview.
We have not made up a list of questions to expect for the premises liability part of the free side of my website, so you will just have to use the following as a guide to the range of questions to expect. This is a list of questions insurance adjusters ask http://www.settlementcentral.com/page0207.htm injured claimants.
Here are two pages that tell what to do now if you have already given a recorded statement to the adjuster.
I trust that my extra 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.
