Statute of Limitations for Brain Injury Lawsuits in California

How to File a Claim Within Statute of Limitations With a Brain Injury Attorney Los Angeles

A head injury is one of the most serious kinds of injury that anyone can sustain. If you have suffered a severe blow to the head during an accident, you will need to be immediately sent to the hospital. Once there, you may require a succession of invasive and complex procedures to save your life. You will then need to undergo a period of rehabilitation and recovery. The damage done to your brain may force you out of your livelihood. Indeed, you may need to give up your life as you have known it.

Your Right to File a Lawsuit After a Brain or Head Injury

If your traumatic brain injury is the result of an accident that was caused by the negligence or recklessness of another person, then you have the right to be compensated by them. An attorney in Los Angeles can help you get the money you are entitled to, as the only professional qualified to handle your case.

Dealing with internal damages will be expensive. There will be medical bills and your usual monthly bills that have accrued while you were in the hospital. You must also get money for medication, in-home care, and other life adjustments you must make because of your injury. To get the money you require, you may need to file a lawsuit. Legal representation can help you pursue this route successfully.

Statute of Limitations

When working with your lawyer to develop your legal strategy, you will need to consider the statute of limitation. The law requires you to file within a certain amount of time after an accident. If you file after the time, your case will probably be thrown out unless you can present a compelling reason why an exception should be made.

Before you get into the details of the lawsuit, you will need to find out from your attorney whether your case is still within the statute of limitations. In the state of California, the SOL varies from case to case. You can file a lawsuit against the responsible party up to 2 years after the date of the injury. However, the symptoms of injuries, like a concussion, do not always show up immediately after the accident. That is why the clock on the SOL starts from the date that the injury becomes known to you. The traumatic brain injury attorney in Los Angeles that you hire can gather the documentation needed to demonstrate the exact date that you became aware of your injury.

There are other factors that determine whether you are still within the statute of limitations. If your child suffered traumatic brain injury when they were a minor, the clock does not start until they turn 18. If the accident you were in was so severe that it put you in coma or mentally incapacitated you in some other way, then the statute of limitations clock begins when you regain consciousness or functionality.

You should not make any assumptions about your ability to sue the party responsible for your injury. These matters must be reviewed and thoroughly examined by your lawyer, who will tell you whether you can proceed with the case.

Symptoms of Traumatic Brain Injury

If you were in an accident, you should go to the hospital. Even if you feel no pain or dizziness, you should get yourself checked out by a medical professional. If you do not get the opinion of a medical professional, you put your health and life at risk. Traumatic brain injury can present in a variety of ways. And you may experience symptoms well after the accident occurred. Here are some of the most common systems of serious head injury:

• Disorientation
• Loss of consciousness
• Fatigue
• Dizziness
• Loss of balance
• Insomnia
• Headache
• Eye pain
• Blurred vision
• Sensitivity to light
• Depression

These symptoms can result from blunt force trauma to the head or through playing contact sports. You can suffer head injury in a car accident or as the result of being struck on the head by a falling object. Such an accident can also result from a violent person-to-person altercation.

If you have sustained such a blow and suffer from any of the above symptoms, you may be entitled to compensation.

Your Fight Begins with a Lawyer

Your attorney will have the skill, experience, and legal insight to get you justice. You can meet with such an attorney while you are still recovering in the hospital or after you have been discharged. In the initial interview, your lawyer will attempt to get the basics of how you came to be injured. Legal counsel will also begin developing the strategy for getting you compensation.

Your lawyer will put their in-house investigative team on your case. The job of the latter will be to review all the evidence connected to the accident. The investigators may re-interview the people who witnessed the accident and may track down others who were never interviewed. This often leads to new evidence that can help your case.

Your lawyer will also bring in independent medical experts to assess your condition. The extent of your injuries and the debilitation they have caused will be used by your attorney to get you more money.

If the party responsible for the accident that led to your head injury refuses to pay what is fair, your lawyer can use the findings of their investigation and the conclusions of medical experts to pressure them. The case need not go to trial. The respondent will probably want to settle rather than risk going before a jury, which may award you a much larger sum of money than you asked for. A smart, tough, capable lawyer will know how to get you compensation that is commensurate with all that you have suffered.
If you have suffered a traumatic head injury in an accident caused by another, then you should seek the counsel of a personal injury lawyer in Los Angeles.