Catastrophic injuries can happen at your workplace, a neighbor’s home, on a slippery public road, through a car accident, while undergoing a medical procedure, and just about anywhere else in and around North Charleston. After sustaining such an injury, you will experience physical, emotional, and financial turmoil.
Navigating those challenges is difficult, to say the least, and you will need help. To get the support and superior legal representation you need, contact a North Charleston personal injury lawyer from Shelly Leeke Law Firm today.
How Catastrophic Injuries Can Affect Your Life
Sometimes, what seems to be a minor slip or fall can lead to a life-changing, catastrophic injury. That life-changing factor is what characterizes an injury as catastrophic.
Life-Changing Physical Effects
Depending on the type of injury you sustain, a catastrophic injury can cause:
- Reduced physical abilities: You may not be able to walk or move through your life as you once did or be unable to care for yourself independently.
- Chronic pain
- Reduced cognitive abilities: Injuries to your brain may leave you unable to understand information, communicate with others, or carry out basic thought processes
- Damage to body systems: Your body may not be able to breathe or carry out other life-sustaining functions on its own, requiring constant support from ventilators or other medical apparatus
Life-Changing Financial Effects
Catastrophic injuries are expensive as they require costly medical care and often prevent victims from earning income. A catastrophic injury often requires surgery, or surgeries, extensive rehabilitation if improvement is possible, and potential daily, lifelong care. The physical and/or cognitive damage you suffer may prevent you from working to support yourself or your household.
You will also face new expenses because of the injury. For example, you may need to hire others to perform tasks you previously fulfilled, such as child care, house and property maintenance, cooking, or driving.
Life-Changing Emotional Effects
The physical and financial losses caused by a catastrophic injury damage emotional health as well. You may grieve the loss of your pre-accident abilities. You may feel isolated if your injury leaves you unable to work and interact with colleagues or attend social events.
Brain trauma can even rob you of the ability to engage and share affection with loved ones. Such comprehensive loss demands comprehensive compensation. A North Charleston catastrophic injury lawyer from Shelly Leeke Law Firm can help you get the compensation you deserve.
Potential Damages a Catastrophic Injury Settlement Can Cover
What you collect damages for and how much you collect depends on the nature of your injury, its cause, and its effects on your life. Your experienced catastrophic injury lawyer in North Charleston will review your situation carefully and discuss your options with you. In most cases, however, you can expect to pursue damages for:
Economic Losses
Your injury will bring significant financial costs, whether through medical expenses, loss of wages, loss of future earnings, property damage, or other new accident-related expenses. Your lawyer will calculate those losses and seek full recovery.
Non-Economic Losses
Though it can be difficult to put a dollar amount on the emotional suffering your injury causes, that suffering still deserves acknowledgment. Money may not remove your pain, but recognizes it and provides financial access to therapies or opportunities that can reduce help reduce it.
Though there is no cap on the amount of non-economic damages victims can collect in most personal injury cases, for medical malpractice suits, South Carolina limits the amount to $350,000 per victim.
Punitive Damages
Unlike compensation for economic and non-economic losses, punitive damages do not seek to make victims whole. Instead, they punish the at-fault party. Not every case warrants the pursuit of punitive damages.
However, if the at-fault party caused your injury with egregious negligence, recklessness, or intent, you may seek justice and hold them accountable by pursuing punitive damages.
South Carolina Code 15-32-530 limits the amount collected in punitive damages to “the greater of three times the amount of compensatory damages awarded to each claimant…or the sum of five hundred thousand dollars,” with Section D of that code providing adjustments of the amount to account for inflation.
How a North Charleston Catastrophic Injury Attorney Will Help You
After a catastrophic injury, you and your loved ones will be overwhelmed by the physical, emotional, and financial fallout. Your priority needs to be on pursuing the highest level of recovery possible. For the sake of your health and for the best financial outcome, it is absolutely in your best interest to have a catastrophic injury attorney in North Charleston handle your case from start to finish.
While you concentrate on healing, your lawyer will:
- File your claim within South Carolina’s statute of limitations. Collect, prepare, and submit all other required documentation, such as medical or accident reports or other legal paperwork.
- Compile evidence to support your claim from every possible source. An experienced North Charleston catastrophic injury lawyer knows what evidence you need and knows how to get it, including witnesses’ testimony, photos or video from the accident scene, medical information, or input from experts in relevant areas.
- Communicate with the at-fault party and their representatives. To protect themselves, these parties will use your words against you and try to coerce you into admitting fault or accepting a low settlement, but your lawyer will handle all discussions, keeping your settlement protected.
- Provide continuous legal counsel and represent you in court if you must take your case to trial. While most personal injury cases settle out of court, sometimes it is necessary to go to trial, and you can count on your North Charleston catastrophic injury attorney to give you the highest-quality representation.
Do Not Settle for Less than the Best
A catastrophic injury is life-changing and requires a life-sustaining settlement. Do not settle for less than your needs and justice demand. To ensure this fair settlement, do not settle for less than the best legal representation.
Contact Shelly Leeke Law Firm. We are available all day, every day, and schedule a free consultation with a North Charleston catastrophic injury attorney. Your lawyer listen will listen to you, communicate with you, and fight for you.
