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Adjusting to life after you sustain a traumatic brain injury can feel insurmountable. This type of injury can be permanent and often requires serious changes to the way you live. Implementing these modifications will take both time and money.
A Tampa traumatic brain injury lawyer can stand up for your rights and present your case for compensation. While adjusting to head trauma can be overwhelming, your injury and resulting financial burdens should not control the rest of your life. A seasoned catastrophic injury attorney is ready to support your claim.
Common Signs of Brain Damage
The symptoms of head trauma can manifest in different ways after an accident. Many common physical symptoms indicating you have sustained a traumatic brain injury include:
- Dizziness
- Loss of consciousness
- Convulsions
- Pupil dilation
- Persistent or worsening headache
While this is not a comprehensive list, it can help you identify whether you may be suffering from a brain injury. If you have experienced these symptoms, turning to a traumatic brain injury lawyer in Tampa can help prove responsibility and hold parties accountable.
Proving Liability for a Traumatic Brain Injury
Whether sustained in a slip and fall, a car accident, by a defective product, or due to any number of tragic accidents that can result in a traumatic brain injury, the most common legal theory utilized in these cases is negligence. In Tampa, a brain trauma attorney must prove four common elements to establish liability.
The first question in a head injury case is whether the responsible party owed you a duty of care. Specific individuals, such as medical practitioners, may be held to different standards of care than the general public. However, everyone has an obligation to take reasonable care to avoid injury to others. What constitutes reasonable is the subject of many injury lawsuits.
Next, the lawyer must show that the responsible party breached the duty of care they owed to you. Legal representation can prove this by demonstrating the party failed to take steps that a reasonable person in their situation would have to avoid harm.
Once an attorney establishes that a person breached their duty of care, they must show that the responsible party caused harm to you and that you sustained actual damages. With these elements satisfied, legal counsel is ready to argue exactly how much those damages are worth.
Comparative Negligence in Head Trauma Cases
A traumatic brain injury lawyer in Tampa must anticipate a legal concept known are pure comparative negligence. This concept comes into play when the parties decide how much a victim should or should not receive in compensation from the lawsuit.
If you are partly responsible for or contributed to your injuries, a court can accordingly diminish the reimbursement you receive. While there are several ways this can play out, the pure comparative negligence theory reduces the compensation you receive in direct correlation with the percentage of responsibility.
For instance, a court may determine that a particular lawsuit is worth $100,000 in damages. However, if it also determines you contributed 20% to your injury, the award would be reduced by 20%. Therefore, you would only receive $80,000 of the award.
Call a Tampa Traumatic Brain Injury Attorney Today
As the victim of brain trauma, your day-to-day life can forever alter. Tasks that were once ordinary can become incredibly challenging, and you may require the constant assistance of a caretaker. These changes are devastating and costly.
You deserve appropriate compensation for your losses. Navigating the complexities of an injury case on your own can be difficult, often resulting in less reimbursement than you deserve. Call a Tampa traumatic brain injury lawyer to discuss your case today.