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Spinal Injury Claims Advice

Legally Reviewed and Edited by: Terry Cochran

Do you have a spinal cord injury from an accident or botched medical procedure? Getting legal advice can help.

What Is The Claims Process?

If you’ve suffered a spinal cord injury through the negligence of another, you have the right to file a lawsuit to recover damages. These damages will usually include your medical bills, an estimation of your future medical care, and other nonmedical damages (usually referred to as pain and suffering).

Filing a personal injury claim can be complex and expensive. However, with legal help, the financial reward from a successful claims process can be significant.

Before the claims process can get underway, however, there are several important things to consider.

An attorney from Cochran, Kroll & Associates, P.C. can meet with you anytime, in a location that is most comfortable for you, including your home or hospital room. We are a Michigan-based personal injury law firm helping injury victims and families who have been injured through another’s negligence to recover damages. After an initial free consultation, if we decide to work together, all fees are limited by state law and are not paid until you get paid.

What Happened?

Spinal cord injuries occur for a variety of reasons, but often they are the result of the unintentional acts of other people (or corporations). Common causes of spinal cord injury include car accidents and work-related falls —particularly in the construction industry. An alarming number of catastrophic injuries to the spine are the result of assault — both physical assaults and firearm shootings.

Also, nearly 1 in 10 spinal cord injuries happen on the playing field or in the water when people are engaging in sports and other forms of recreation.

Work-related injuries are handled a bit differently in the claims process than injuries resulting from medical malpractice, a defective product (like a faulty ladder), or motor vehicle accidents (including cars, motorcycles, trucks, and boats).

Cochran, Kroll & Associates, P.C. can help you identify the liable party — which isn’t always the same as the negligent party — and be your ally in any meeting or hearing with an insurance company representing negligent parties.

What’s The Evidence?

Before you begin a claims process, you need to consider the strength of your case based on the evidence. There is significant background work involved in assembling a case, filing a personal injury claim, and negotiating a successful settlement. It’s always best to do the evidence-gathering as soon after the injury occurred as possible. An attorney will know where to look and who to call to gather this evidence.

Evidence of negligence is important. This might be shown on police reports, but this can also be proven through witness interviews, video and/or audio recordings, and other documentation.

Also important is medical evidence, which can prove to a judge and jury the extent of your injuries and resulting disabilities. This involves assembling records and testimony from your doctors, rehabilitation therapists, and other healthcare professionals who have been involved in your treatment.

The spinal cord injury attorneys at Cochran, Kroll & Associates, P.C. understand both the medical and legal dimensions of a spinal injury lawsuit and can handle all aspects of case evaluation and development. Senior partner Eileen Kroll specializes in medical cases, and her training as a registered nurse is invaluable in evaluating your spinal cord injuries for legal purposes.

What Are the Damages?

What are the long-term impacts of your injuries? Are they permanent? Are you unable to return to the same job? Are you unable to work at all? How will you and your family survive in the future?

In Michigan, there are two categories of damages to be determined in a personal injury lawsuit.

Non-economic damages include losses that are significant, yet difficult to quantify — like the loss of relationships and life enjoyment that often accompany a severe injury and disability.

Economic damages include lost income — including lost future income — as well as all the costs associated with your care. This includes medical care, rehabilitation, and ongoing treatment, as well as any costs associated with home modification, vehicle modification, and special equipment (i.e. wheelchair, special furniture and fixtures).

If you are working with one of the spinal cord injury lawyers at Cochran, Kroll & Associates, P.C. we may work with an outside party — a person with expertise in actuarial mathematics and financial theory — to do a detailed analysis of your current needs, and the lifetime costs of those needs, as part of the process of developing your case.

When Did It Happen?

Don’t wait too long to decide to file a claim. If your spinal cord injury happened more than a year or two before you file a claim, the likelihood of the claim being heard in court is significantly diminished. The statute of limitations for personal injury cases like this is, in most cases, three years. There are exceptions that can either shorten or extend that timeframe.

Depending on the type of injury — and the type of accident — getting sound legal advice as soon as possible after the accident makes a big difference in the ultimate outcome of your case and the compensation you receive.

An attorney from Cochran, Kroll & Associates, P.C. can help you and your family understand your legal situation — and all the possible settlement and litigation scenarios. We bring enormous sensitivity, compassion, and patience to all our client relationships. We also bring a wealth of experience and tenacious legal energy to the work we do on our clients’ behalf.

Contact us toll-free (24 hours) at 866-MICH-LAW or use our convenient online contact form.

Disclaimer : The information provided is general and not for legal advice. The blogs are not intended to provide legal counsel and no attorney-client relationship is created nor intended.

Mark is a freelance writer living near Concord, New Hampshire. He works with a range of businesses and professional associations in their strategic messaging and content development projects. He also provides content development services to nonprofits and government agencies, helping them distill complex topics and make information more accessible across multiple platforms. When he's not writing, he enjoys working outside and finds mowing his fields on a warm sunny day to be a peak experience.

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