Injuries to the brain can happen suddenly, leaving a physical, emotional, and financial impact. TBIs, which are traumatic brain injuries, happen a lot, with thousands of cases being reported. Many of these injuries are caused by car crashes, falls, or workplace accidents. The cost of treatment can be overwhelming, and you could lose your income, too, since it affects your ability to work. Understanding how a brain injury claim can be complicated, but knowing which factors impact your settlement can make it easier.

An experienced Las Vegas attorney will help address all complexities to help maximize your claim, especially the key factors determining the value of a settlement. With the right attorney, you can secure the financial relief you need to move on in a city where life is unpredictable.

Let us look at the five factors determining value in a brain injury settlement.

  1. The Severity of the Brain Injury

How severe your brain injury is will influence your settlement. Insurers, attorneys, and courts will use it to evaluate your claim. Doctors can use the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) to classify traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) as mild, moderate, or severe. This classification determines your treatment and how much compensation you will receive. Medical diagnosis and reports must be done correctly for each category, which will have specific consequences.

Concussion, which is a mild type of TBI, could seem minor, but it can have effects that linger for months or even years. You could have disrupted daily functioning due to headaches, dizziness, memory problems, and other symptoms that interfere with work and relationships. Though they are “mild,” you could still receive a significant settlement. Victims of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) settlements typically range from $20,000 to well over $100,000, though medical proof and long-term significance will affect the settlement amount. However, without clear evidence of your injuries and the related costs, the insurance company could try to downplay the effects the injuries have had on you.

On the other hand, moderate TBIs have apparent symptoms like confusion, slurred speech, and coordination problems. Many victims will go through extensive rehabilitation. You may need speech therapy, physical therapy, and cognitive rehabilitation to regain lost abilities. In Nevada, moderate TBIs can have settlements over $100,000, mainly when medical costs and lost income are significant. The continuing care expenses warrant greater damages, especially when you can prove the extent of your limitations and the cost of your treatment.

Those with severe TBIs, like remaining in a coma and disabilities, will require life-long medical care and rehabilitation. People could need medical treatment for life, assisted living, or nursing care at home. These medical expenses continue to rise, so if you are involved in a car accident or fall at your workplace and suffer a severe TBI, your settlement can be worth millions. The financial impact goes way beyond the first doctor’s bill. You could also be compensated for lost earning capacity, home modifications, and ongoing therapy. Most serious TBIs settle for over $1 million, especially if there are permanent disabilities and future medical assistance is required.

To improve your chances of a respectable settlement for your traumatic brain injury, you need strong medical evidence. MRIs, CT scans, and neuropsychological evaluations evidence brain injury. It helps to have these assessments from leading providers. A test to show how bad your injury is ensures your insurance company does not downplay or deny your injury. If you do not have solid medical records, you risk having your claim undervalued, which could leave you unable to receive sufficient compensation to pay for future care or lost wages.

Note: The severity of your brain injury determines the basis of your settlement, but the medical proof secures the outcome. Expert neurological evaluation can lead to your claim covering all your suffering and losses.

  1. Medical Expenses

Medical expenses will be the next key pillar of your brain injury settlement that will affect the recovery you can seek. These costs fall into two primary categories, namely:

  • Past medical expenses

  • Future care needs

You can claim the expenses you have already incurred, including emergency room services for your brain injury, along with any subsequent hospital stays and surgeries you have undergone. Future costs will likely be even more significant than those you have already incurred. These include rehabilitation, medication, and future treatment.

Rehab will likely be an essential part of your recuperation. You may need:

  • Physical therapy to move again

  • Occupational therapy to recover the skills required for daily life and

  • Speech therapy to help you re-learn how to communicate

You might also need to pay for wheelchairs, drugs to stop seizures, or mental health counseling to deal with your injury. Experts prepare life care plans for extreme cases, estimating medical costs over decades, which could amount to millions. The costs for rehabilitation, including availability at local facilities, significantly impact settlement values.

It is essential to document every medical cost to secure full compensation. Keeping track of every bill, prescription, and therapy you take will help strengthen your compensation claim and ensure that the insurers do not undervalue your losses. The medical costs are considerably high, so failing to maintain detailed medical records will only result in a reduced settlement, adversely affecting you.

  1. Economic and Non-Economic Damages

Your brain injury settlement includes an economic and non-economic damage component, representing the full value of your injury.

Economic Damages

Economic damages refer to the tangible financial losses you have incurred, starting with lost wages. If you suffer a traumatic brain injury, your job could completely stop. When an injury prevents you from working for some weeks or permanently ends your ability to earn, the financial consequences can be severe.

Besides losing wages at once, lost earning capacity is also a crucial part of your settlement. If your TBI makes you switch careers or you cannot return to work, the resulting long-term financial loss can be staggering.

For example, consider a 30-year-old bartender earning $50,000 annually. If a serious brain injury prevents them from working for the rest of their life, the loss of income could total more than $1 million. A vocational expert or an economist would testify to how a TBI affects your future earning capacity and financial picture. If you are young when you suffer a brain injury, the higher your potential damages. You have more potential income years on which to base damages.

Medical expenses are also part of economic damages, but since they are the core issue of a personal injury claim, they are addressed separately.

Non-economic Damages

While economic damage gives an accurate picture of financial loss, noneconomic damage highlights the personal loss from a TBI. Pain and suffering are part of the non-economic losses. Compensation for this covers everything, including:

  • Chronic headaches and physical pain

  • Emotional suffering

  • Anxiety

  • Depression

The mental impact of a brain injury can be just as severe as the physical effects, impacting relationships, work, and overall well-being. You might have memory loss or concentration issues. Moreover, you could suffer mood swings, which could change your personality. All these could strain your personal relationships. If this is your experience, you could include the strain as non-economic damage in your claim.

Unlike economic damages, which require medical bills or pay slips as evidence, non-economic damages could be substantiated by personal journals, family member testimony, and mental health professional assessments.

There are different ways courts and insurers assess non-economic damages. One of the most popular ways a court or insurance company will determine how much to award for damages is the multiplier method, which multiplies your total economic damages by a number between 1.5 and 5. The more severe the injury or the injury that will impact your life, the higher the multiplier used.

The other method is the per diem approach. If you use this method, your suffering will be assigned a dollar value daily. The total is the dollar amount multiplied by the days you suffered with symptoms. A younger individual who will have to face countless challenges in the future will likely receive a much higher multiplier than someone very close to retirement. In Las Vegas, where quality of life and job opportunities depend on the functioning of the mind and body, these damages are significant during negotiations.

The nature of your day-to-day life before the injury will also impact your claim. Your damages will be enhanced if you cannot manage your hobbies, travel, or keep up with your social life because of your TBI. For example, A professional poker player who cannot use their strategy anymore or a performer on the Strip who cannot coordinate will likely receive larger settlements due to the drastic change in their livelihood. An injury affecting the brain can make you less able to work and carry on with relationships, among other challenges. It can throw your quality of life and future off-track.

You must do more than present your case to receive a fair settlement. You need proper medical records and a financial situation that describes how the injury has changed your life. Insurance firms could pay out less as your injuries are not as bad as you claim. If you do not have clear evidence, they might underplay your case, undervalue your injuries, and offer you much less than you deserve. An experienced personal injury lawyer can help you present a strong case, showing how your TBI impacted your life.

  1. Liability and Negligence

Finding out who is at fault is essential to securing compensation for your brain injury. You will have to prove that the actions or inactions of another directly caused your injury. To do this, you will have to prove four elements, namely:

  • Duty of care

  • Breach of the duty of care

  • Causation and

  • Damages

Negligence can take on many forms. Examples of negligent actions that could lead to a serious TBI include:

  • A driver speeding down Las Vegas Boulevard while distracted

  • A casino that fails to clean up a hazardous spill

  • A construction company that does not follow safety regulations or have the proper signage, resulting in guests or workers being hurt

Each case hinges on solid evidence, which could include the following:

  • If a careless driver causes you harm, a police report from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, traffic camera footage, and witness testimony will demonstrate their negligence.

  • If you are injured at a hotel or casino, the security footage of the incident, the maintenance reports, and the employee’s testimony could show the lapses in property upkeep.

  • Expert medical testimony may be able to demonstrate that your condition was caused by medical malpractice.

Documentation plays a decisive role. Any photos of the dangerous conditions or injuries you sustained, professional opinions or accident recreations. If your injury occurred due to a business’s negligence, you need incident reports and employee statements to build a case. Consider checking the driver logs and maintenance records for violations of federal safety regulations in truck accident situations.

It is difficult to prove liability without this evidence.

Nevada’s modified comparative negligence adds a layer of complexity. If you share fault for your injury, your compensation would be reduced by your percentage of fault. If, for example, you are responsible for 20% of the accident, your settlement will be decreased accordingly. However, if the jury determines you are more than 50% to blame, you will not receive any damages. Insurance companies take advantage of this rule to reduce their payouts. This makes gathering airtight proof essential.

  1. Punitive damages and the Defendant’s Financial Position

The potential for punitive damages could significantly increase the value of your brain injury settlement. Unlike compensatory damages, which pay the claimant for their medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering, punitive damages have a different purpose. They are designed to punish the defendant for their egregious conduct and stop others from doing the same. Punitive damages are awarded in cases where the defendant’s actions are more than just negligent but somewhat grossly negligent or willful.

Punitive damages under Nevada law are available for the most wrongful cases.

For example, let us say you are injured in the brain because a drunk driver with an extremely high blood alcohol content (BAC) runs a red light on the Strip. Or perhaps you are purposely punched by a bouncer at the casino. Either situation could leave the door open for you to recover punitive damages. To prove the defendant acted with “reckless disregard for safety” is challenging. It is not enough to show that they were negligent. You have to show that they knowingly acted in a way that posed a serious risk to others. If your compensatory damages in these cases are valued at less than $100,000, then punitive damages of a maximum of $300,000 apply to the case as per Nevada law. If your compensatory damages are over $100,000, the cap is triple that of your compensatory damages. For instance, if it is less than $100,000, punitive damages of a maximum of $300,000 apply to the case as per Nevada law. If your compensatory damages are over $100,000, the cap is triple that of your compensatory damages. For instance, if the jury awards you $200,000 in compensatory damages, you can get $600,000 in punitive damages.

In addition to punitive damages’ goal of making the defendant pay for their egregious behavior, the defendant’s ability to pay should also be considered. When the jury awards you punitive damages, you may not collect the full amount if the defendant cannot afford to pay. Most businesses have significant insurance policies. If a corporation like a hotel or casino is involved in your case, they could have ample funds and an insurance policy to pay for these claims. These parties could settle out of court to avoid a trial’s bad press and costs. In these cases, the settlement can be considerable due to the corporation’s ability to pay.

On the other hand, if you are dealing with one individual defendant, especially one with limited financial resources, the value of the settlement will be quite low. Collecting anything close to the full amount of your claim can be challenging, even if the jury awards you some punitive damages if the defendant is an uninsured driver or one with limited funds. In these situations, your attorney could conduct an asset search, probing their financial life to determine what the defendant can pay. This search would uncover hidden assets, including property, bank accounts, and business interests, that could be used to pay the judgment. However, even if you can win your lawsuit, the collection effort can be very complicated and frustrating if the defendant does not have the money to pay.

The defendant’s finances can significantly influence the final value of your settlement. It can also dictate whether you are paid quickly or the case drags on, recovering less in compensation. Consequently, your lawyer will work hard to identify every available asset and strive to ensure you secure the best settlement based on the defendant’s financial position. In certain situations, the insurance provider offering coverage for the defendant’s conduct will manage the negotiations for settlement. In other cases, you may have to go after personal assets for payment.

Find a Personal Injury Attorney Near Me

Securing a settlement for a brain injury in Las Vegas can be difficult. Whether it is the severity of your injury or the increasing cost of your medicines, every detail shapes the outcome. Moreover, every piece of evidence counts when you file a case for traumatic brain injury, and an experienced personal injury attorney can help with this.

At Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney Law Firm, our experienced attorneys will help unravel the details of your case and work hard to secure the compensation you deserve. If you have suffered a brain injury, please contact us at 702-996-1224 for a free consultation. Our efforts will help you tilt the odds in your favor.