Gainesville Brain Injury Lawyer

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Brain Injury Lawyer in Gainesville, Florida

A brain injury is one of the most severe consequences that you can suffer from an accident. If you or a loved one suffered a traumatic brain injury due to someone else’s negligence in Gainesville, Florida, you need an experienced Gainesville brain injury lawyer to fight for your rights and secure the compensation you deserve.

At Steven A. Bagen & Associates, P.A., our dedicated team of attorneys has a proven track record of successfully representing brain injury victims and their families. We understand the profound impact a brain injury can have on your life, and we are committed to providing compassionate, personalized legal representation to help you navigate this challenging time and obtain the justice you deserve.

Steven A. Bagen & Associates, P.A., Helps Victims of Traumatic Brain Injuries

A brain injury is a serious injury that can cause lasting damage. Such injuries can happen in many types of incidents, including:

• Truck crashes on I-75.
• Car or motorcycle accidents at dangerous intersections like Northwest 34th Street and Northwest 39th Avenue or West University Avenue and Northwest 22nd Street.
• Accidents at River Ranch Water Park
• Falls while shopping at Publix

If someone is responsible for causing a brain injury, they have a legal obligation to pay the damages accident victims suffer. An experienced Gainesville brain injury lawyer can help you seek justice and recover compensation for your accident-related losses.

Steven A. Bagen & Associates, P.A. is ready to help. We have obtained results for clients in many types of accidents, including:

• $3.5 million in a car accident claim
• $1 million in a truck accident claim
• $1 million in a defective products claim
• $800,000 in a motorcycle accident claim

We can bring our experience and resources to the table to help you.

The Consequences of a Lasting Brain Injury

There is no such thing as a minor brain injury. Even a “mild” TBI may have lifelong consequences.

The statistics about a moderate TBI show the effects:

• Half the people with anything more than a minor TBI will need at least one return visit to the hospital
• One-third of TBI patients will require some degree of help with the activities of daily life
• Those with TBIs are 50 times more likely to suffer seizures and nine times more likely to contract infections

The Causes of a Brain Injury

Brain injuries can happen with practically any type of personal injury. In most cases, there is some trauma to the head.

Here are some accidents that cause TBIs:

• Car accidents
• Slip and falls
• Medical malpractice
• Assaults
• Premises liability accidents
• Pedestrian accidents
• Motorcycle accidents
• Bicycle accidents

Get Medical and Legal Help After a Brain Injury

From your standpoint, get medical treatment if you even suspect that something is wrong. Some TBIs do not immediately appear. The injury can worsen without treatment. If you delay treatment, the insurance company may claim you made it worse.

Prompt medical treatment if you notice any symptoms is always the best option. If you have had any head trauma, you should see a doctor, even if you do not notice any symptoms. It is always better to play things safe.

At the same time, you should also contact an experienced attorney who can handle your case and fight for you to receive financial compensation. It is not a given that you will receive monetary compensation. Your attorney will help put you in a position where you have a legal right to money by gathering the evidence that you need to show that someone else was to blame.

Proving Negligence Is a Requirement for Any Brain Injury

Before you can be in a position to talk dollars and cents, you must show that someone else was responsible for your injuries. That requires that you prove negligence. No matter how you were injured, the legal principle is always that you must demonstrate that someone acted unreasonably under the circumstances. The legal standard will not be lower because of the severity of the injury.

Negligence means that someone has done something wrong to cause your injury. While few people hold others to the standard of perfection, they must pay for the damages they cause when they act unreasonably under the circumstances.

Brain Injuries Have High Costs Attached to Them

Brain injuries are among the most expensive to treat. One recent study found that the total cost of health care for brain injuries across the entire country was over $40 billion. These are just the health care costs.

Patients will need critical short-term care immediately after they suffer a brain injury. What happens in the first hours and days can determine whether the patient can recover and the extent of their recovery. Often, patients will need at least one surgery to relieve some of the pressure on the brain. Otherwise, the continued swelling can lead to the permanent death of cells in vital areas of the brain.

Rehabilitation Costs Will Also Be High and Ongoing

In the days after the patient’s situation is stabilized, they may begin rehabilitation that can help them either re-learn vital abilities that they had lost or help them adjust to life with their brain injury. Their extensive therapy needs may never end.

Patients may need the following types of rehabilitation:

• Physical therapy
• Occupational therapy
• Speech therapy

Patients may need extensive time in an inpatient or outpatient facility. Then, they can need rehabilitation services for years and perhaps even permanently. For some brain injury patients, therapy almost seems like a full-time job.

In addition, brain injury patients will also need help from a mental health provider to help them adjust to life with a brain injury and the realities of their situation.

Medical Insurance May Not Cover the Full Costs of Your Injury

Some brain injury care may be experimental, and health insurance may not cover all of it. Even if insurance covers the service, you may need to pay a deductible or copay. It may seem like you are getting a new bill every single day. These costs can add up and have more of an impact when you cannot work and bring in money. You may find yourself in a constant tug-of-war with your health insurance company and constantly negotiating medical bills with doctors. Before your settlement, we can help negotiate payments and due dates with your providers.

If someone else caused your brain injury, they must pay for the costs of your care. This legal principle applies to both past and future medical expenses.

Someone will have to reimburse your health insurance provider for the costs they have already paid, and you will be paid back for your share of the cost. Your brain injury accident settlement or award will then pay for your future medical expenses.

You will need a strong sense of your future medical care costs because your health insurance company will be off the hook when there is a settlement to pay medical expenses.

Given the expense involved with treating brain injuries, you need to work now to get enough money to pay for all your damages. If your medical expenses are at the upper end of the range for treating TBIs, the other damages may escalate, too.

Pain and Suffering and Brain Injuries

For example, insurance companies will usually calculate pain and suffering at multiples of your medical bills. The more serious the injury, the higher the multiple. If you have a brain injury requiring more than $1 million of medical care, you can expect considerable pain and suffering damages.

Any TBI can cause:

• Loss of enjoyment of life
• Depression and anxiety
• Embarrassment and humiliation
• Permanent disfigurement
• Loss of ability to sleep

Brain injury victims are often not the same again after their injury. They may regain most or all of their functions only come after extensive medical care and grueling rehabilitation. The rehabilitation process can take years, with many ups and downs.

You may be wondering how you can foresee the future now, which is what you need to do to get enough compensation. In personal injury cases, you are not allowed to come back for money as you incur the damages. Instead, you get one settlement or jury verdict that is supposed to compensate you for your injuries.

If the money turns out not to be enough, there is nothing that you can do because you have already signed a release that frees the insurance company from any further liability in connection with your claim.

How an Experienced Brain Injury Attorney Helps You

Here is how a lawyer will help you place a number of your brain injury damages, so you can seek total and fair compensation:

• Your attorney will review the medical diagnosis and consult with your doctor and medical experts to understand your prognosis.
• A lawyer will review your life circumstances before and after the accident to understand what you lost because of your brain injury.
• They will work with other experts, such as a vocational expert, to determine whether you can still have a career and how your job may be affected by your brain injury (many TBI victims can no longer do the work that they did before the injury if they can even work at all)
• Your lawyer will also consider the overall economic climate and future expectations, given that we are in a high-inflation environment.

The injury you or your family member suffered does not matter to the insurance company. No matter how much you have lost in your life because of their policyholder’s negligence, they view you as the same type of expense. Even though you have a critical need for money, the insurance company’s self-interest will keep them from doing the right thing on their own.

You will need an aggressive attorney to pressure the insurance company into living up to its legal obligations. If not, you will need to take your case to court, and an insurance company does not want to face off against a seriously injured plaintiff in court, lest they run into a sympathetic jury.

Given the injuries you or a family member must deal with, you do not have the physical ability to handle your case. With the amount of money potentially on the line, you also should not try to deal with the insurance company on your own.

From a legal standpoint, the insurance company will get the better of you without someone on your side to protect your legal rights. Getting the better of you means they have either avoided paying you entirely or paid you far less than you deserve.

Insurance Companies Do Not Care About the Severity of Your Injury

Insurance companies may use tricks to save money at your expense:

• They may try to minimize the severity of your brain injury and dispute your damages
• They may make you a lowball settlement offer to see what you will accept
• They may dispute your medical diagnosis and the necessity of some of your treatments
• They may claim that you can still work (or do some work) when you can no longer do your job
• They may claim that you are partially or entirely to blame for your injuries

An experienced lawyer knows how to push back on these tricks and will work to get you the maximum possible financial recovery for your brain injury. Your suffering is bad enough without having to suffer more at the hands of the insurance company. They may put you through stress, but when you hire us, they cannot avoid paying you what you are due. We are here to deal with the details to insulate you from some of the day-to-day angst that can go with the legal process.

Contact the Gainesville Brain Injury Lawyers at Steven A. Bagen & Associates, P.A., Today

If you or a loved one suffered a brain injury in an accident, you may be entitled to significant financial compensation. Remember that insurance companies are for-profit companies. They ensure they are profitable by paying out as little as possible on as few claims as possible. Given the high stakes, you cannot leave anything to chance. After all, a brain injury can affect the rest of someone’s life. Contact an attorney immediately to begin work on the legal process.

Call the lawyers at Steven A. Bagen & Associates, P.A. today at (800) 800-2575 or contact us online for your free initial consultation. If you cannot make the call yourself, have a family member reach out for you. Your legal rights in a brain injury case are valuable, and you should not take them for granted. We have almost four decades of experience fighting for injured clients like you.

Testimonial:

My experience was more than great, from the moment I acquired about their services to the moment my case was finalized and settled, there was steady communication, and I was consistently in the loop. They explain things to you in a way that you can understand and ensure that you are involved in the decision making. Everyone is super kind and stays in contact with you even after settling. They truly care about your well being and I will definitely keep them at the top of the list for any other cases.

Christina Augustin