How Personal Injury Attorneys & Serious Injury Lawyers Present Damages in Catastrophic Injury Cases
Personal injury lawyers commonly are consulted by a potential client who has been seriously injured or who has suffered catastrophic injuries as the
result of the breadth of negligent conduct, from an auto accident or bicycle or pedestrian or motorcycle accident to medical malpractice, a product
defect, food poisoning, or a defect or failure to maintain commercial or residential premises.
While "liability" in some cases may be simple, such as the auto accident lawyers establishing through witness testimony that the defendant
driver ran the red light, the presentation of the damage case in every serious injury case is complex. Specific injuries sustained in auto accidents or
premises liability cases, such as traumatic brain injury (TBI) or spinal cord injuries resulting in paralysis, quadriplegia or paraplegia, and the resulting
loss of enjoyment of life, can be as complex to present by personal injury lawyers as the evidence of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome HUS in a food
poisoning case, or cerebral palsy in an obstetrical medical malpractice case.
Furthermore, speaking again just in terms of the client's "general damages," the personal injury lawyers must use appropriate strategies to
convey to the settlement judge or jury the life consequence of the serious injuries. Many personal injury attorneys refer to "general
damages" as "pain and suffering," but often the most persuasive strategy can be framed in terms of "loss of enjoyment of
life." One way that lawyers will present their clients general damages is by eliciting the testimony of the client, his family and friends, as well as
photographs and home movies demonstrating all the activities that the client enjoyed most in his life before the accident, juxtaposed against a
"Day in the Life" film, commissioned by the personal injury lawyer to demonstrate the courage of the seriously injured client as he con