Mild vs. Severe Brain Injuries: What’s the Difference in Legal Claims?

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) can disrupt your life in many ways, leaving you and your family dealing with medical bills, emotional distress, and many unanswered questions. TBIs can range from anything from a mild concussion to a life-altering severe brain injury. Every brain injury is serious, but the legal approach to mild and severe TBIs can differ significantly. Let’s take a look at what sets these cases apart and how their differences might affect your legal claim.

What are mild and severe brain injuries?

Before getting into the legal side of things, we should break down what distinguishes a mild brain injury from a more severe one.

Mild brain injuries

Mild TBIs, like concussions, might not sound like a big deal. However, these injuries are far from trivial. Symptoms of a mild TBI can include headaches, dizziness or balance issues, memory problems, sensitivity to light and noise, and (sometimes) temporary loss of consciousness.

These symptoms can last days, weeks, or even months and can interfere with your ability to work, drive, or enjoy life as you did before the injury.

Severe brain injuries

Severe brain injuries are a different story. They often result from high-impact accidents, like car accidents or falls from significant heights. Symptoms can include an extended loss of consciousness (several hours or more), significant cognitive or physical impairments, seizures, long-term or permanent disabilities, and behavioral changes or mood swings.

A severe TBI can require ongoing medical care, therapy, and assistance with daily activities, which can place an enormous emotional and financial strain on your family.

What are some common causes of brain injuries?

Whether they’re mild or severe, traumatic brain injuries can stem from similar types of accidents. Some of these scenarios include:

• Car, truck, and motorcycle crashes are a leading cause of TBIs.
• Slip-and-fall accidents, especially among older adults, can result in traumatic brain injuries.
• Contact sports can lead to both mild and severe TBIs, especially when proper safety precautions aren’t followed.
• Jobs involving heavy machinery or hazardous environments also carry a higher risk of head injuries.
• Assaults or other violent acts can lead to TBIs, especially in cases involving blunt-force

How do mild and severe TBIs affect a legal claim?

The severity of your injury shapes nearly all aspects of your case when it comes to pursuing compensation for a brain injury.

Mild TBIs, for example, can be tricky to prove. The injury might not show up on imaging scans, like CTs or MRIs, so often, you’ll need detailed medical records, expert testimony, and documentation of your symptoms. Our Chattanooga traumatic brain injury lawyers might also rely on witnesses who can describe how your injuries have changed your daily life.

Severe TBIs, on the other hand, are typically easier to document, as they often appear on medical imaging scans or involve visible and measurable impairments. Medical experts can testify about your long-term prognosis and the level of care you’ll need moving forward.

The severity of your injury plays a huge role in determining the value of your claim. Your economic damages include medical bills, lost wages, and other out-of-pocket expenses. Severe TBIs can necessitate long-term care, which makes your economic damages significantly higher. Non-economic damages compensate you for your pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life. While a mild TBI might disrupt your life, a severe TBI has a more profound impact, leading to higher non-economic damages. In cases involving gross negligence, like in a drunk driving accident, you may also be eligible for punitive damages, which are meant to punish the offender and deter similar future behaviors.

Whether you have a mild or severe TBI can also affect the duration of your legal claim. A mild TBI claim might resolve more quickly because they often involve shorter recovery times and less complicated medical needs. However, severe TBI cases can drag on for some time because of the need to accurately calculate lifelong costs and negotiate with insurers, who are often reluctant to pay high settlements.

Further, both mild and severe TBI cases benefit from expert witnesses, but their roles may differ for each. In a mild TBI case, the expert might focus on linking the injury to specific symptoms and proving how these symptoms have affected your life. For a severe TBI, the expert might provide detailed accounts of your medical condition, your long-term care requirements, and the likely progression of your condition.

What are the challenges in traumatic brain injury cases?

With a mild TBI, one of your biggest hurdles is convincing insurers or a jury that your injury is serious. Sometimes mild TBIs are dismissed as “just a concussion,” which can downplay the real struggles you’re facing. Here are some steps our Chattanooga TBI attorneys might take to strengthen your case:

• We gather medical records, diagnostic tests, and notes from therapists or psychologists to help illustrate the full scope of your injury.
• We work with you to put together videos, photos, or journals documenting how your injury has affected your daily routine.
• We also talk to your friends, family, and coworkers to get valuable insight into how your life has changed since the injury.

With a severe TBI case, the stakes can be massive. This means the insurance companies will fight tooth and nail to minimize any payout. The complexity of these types of cases can also create challenges, but our TBI attorneys work through them. We can work with life care planners, economists, and medical experts to estimate the full cost of your injury, including all your future expenses. We also understand that severe TBIs often result from catastrophic accidents, which can involve multiple parties. Our attorneys work to determine who is at fault, which can be a lengthy and complex process.

How can your Chattanooga TBI attorneys help?

Brain injury cases can be complicated, and no two are alike. Our experienced lawyers understand how to work through the challenges of both mild and severe TBI claims. Here’s how we can help:

• We investigate the incident to determine what happened and who could be liable.
• We collect evidence like medical records and enlist the support of experts to build a strong case.
• If the insurance company tries to downplay the severity of your brain injury, we fight to ensure they take your claim seriously.
• If negotiations can’t lead to a fair settlement, we are always prepared to take your case to trial in order to fight for the compensation to which you’re entitled.

Have you or a loved one experienced a mild or severe brain injury? Don’t face the aftermath alone. At Wagner Workers Compensation & Personal Injury Lawyers, we’re here to guide you through the legal process and fight for the compensation you deserve. Let us help you take the first step toward justice and recovery for your damages. Please call our office or use our contact form to schedule a free case evaluation in Chattanooga today. We also work with clients throughout Cleveland and North Georgia.