What Compensation Can I Recover From a Party Who Caused My Spinal Cord Injuries?

The justice system is designed to reimburse you for all the losses that someone else’s wrongful conduct caused you. With spinal cord injuries, this generally extends to all short-term and long-term medical bills (such as surgeries, hospital stays, prescriptions, and extended treatment), lost wages, and pain and suffering. Normally, the hardest thing about analyzing damages with catastrophic injuries is coming up with a figure for lost income and medical care costs over the next 10, 20, or 30 years. Typically, plaintiffs’ lawyers use comparable numbers from similar cases but defendants’ lawyers low ball to undercut any recovery. The key to a successful recovery is painting a picture the jury can believe with facts and showing the real pain and suffering the plaintiff has suffered.

By and large, you are allowed to recover for all of the ways in which the spinal cord accident damaged your life-financially, personally, emotionally, etc. However, this implies two things. First, that you ask for certain kinds of compensation and, second, that you prove these kinds of compensation in court. However, in some fields of litigation, you are not allowed to seek some forms of relief. For instance, you cannot seek punitive damages in a medical malpractice case. Alternatively, you cannot seek various forms of relief in a workers’ compensation claim. There are other limits, but the general rule is that you can seek recovery for every way in which the spinal cord accident impacted your life.

The kind of trial strategy that you choose and employ will have a great effect on the amount and nature of compensation available to you in court. Spinal cord accident cases are by their very definition complicated-legally and factually; therefore, it is critical to have a team of lawyers that can set up the best argument and then translate that to a jury. Some points that you should focus on when crafting a strategy to win your spinal cord injury case include the following:

• How do the facts of your accident support the major points of your case?
• How will you use discovery to bolster your side and minimize the other side?
• What path will you paint to the jury during your opening argument?
• How will you use your witnesses to show how the circumstances of the incident warrant your recovery?
• Do you have a credible way to respond to the defendant’s allegations?