I’m Tony Baratta. Today, I wanted to discuss some common tactics that are used by defense attorneys to try to defeat your claim for personal injuries caused by a brain injury.
A client case
I represented one particular client. He was sitting in his pickup truck at a red traffic light, when suddenly, he was rear-ended by a box truck that weighed about 25,000 pounds, traveling at about 35 miles per hour. He was hospitalized, suffered lacerations to his head, was knocked unconscious and had a traumatic brain injury that continued to plague him for years after the accident.
You would think that under such a circumstance, the defense would be willing to compensate this person fairly. But keep in mind that trucking companies and other drivers are represented by insurance companies, and insurance companies are in the business to make money.
Insurance companies’ strategies
They’re not paying for Super Bowl commercials because they are not making money. Instead, they’re denying claims when they can or minimizing them to the extent possible. And here are some of the tactics defense lawyers use to try to minimize your brain injury.
They’ll scrutinize your medical history
First, they’ll make sure they get every single one of your medical records for your entire medical history. Then they’ll hire doctors to scrutinize those records. They’ll try to come up with some explanation as to why you had the problems that you have now due to some other condition unrelated to the motor vehicle wreck.
Or maybe they’ll find some record of treatment after the fact or some event after the fact and say this is the reason why you’re having these ongoing symptoms.
They argue that your injury should have healed
Another tactic that defense lawyers use is that they will try to suggest that you did have an injury, but it should have healed. After all, a large percentage of people who suffer a brain injury do get better. And because you don’t fall into that category of people who have gotten better, you must not be truthful.
Therefore, this is a second tactic that they’ll use. And they’ll corroborate that tactic with defense experts who will examine you, and say, “You don’t have anything other than… You don’t have a brain injury, what you have is a psychological injury.” They claim that this is all in your head.
They’ll call you a liar
The third thing that the defense lawyers will do is to come out and call you an out-and-out liar. They’ll have you tested, maybe neuropsychologically, and say that you’re malingering. They say that you really don’t have the symptoms that you claim you’re having and you’re doing it for financial gain.
Of course, you should not worry about any of these defense tactics because you are hurt. Your injuries are real, and you have hired the right lawyer to help combat these common defense tactics. My name is Tony Baratta, and I hope that this has been helpful to you.
