Brain Injuries

Brain injuries involve physical trauma to the brain or head, including harm suffered due to shaking, bumping, penetration, or loss of oxygen. Some signs of a brain injury include headache, fatigue, dizziness, cognitive deficits, and blurred vision. If you are involved in any accident that inflicts a blow to the head, including a concussion or loss of consciousness, you should seek medical attention immediately and then consult a Los Angeles brain injury lawyer. Since some of the symptoms of a brain injury may be delayed, the immediate medical care can allow a causal connection between your harm and the accident to be established. At Sharifi Firm, our injury lawyers can help people in the Los Angeles area and throughout Southern California pursue compensation after harm caused by someone else's negligence, recklessness, or intentional misconduct.

Most accidents are the result of negligence by one or more parties. If you suffer a brain injury due to someone else's negligence, you can bring a lawsuit for compensation. You would need to establish the defendant's duty, a breach of duty, actual and proximate causation, and quantifiable damages.

Certain other elements may also need to be established, depending on the type of claim. For example, if you are visiting a store and fall off a broken escalator onto your head, suffering brain damage, you would need to show that the store knew or should have known in the exercise of reasonable care that the escalator was broken and failed to warn you. Or, if your child is playing on a Bouncy house and the stakes are defective such that your child is lifted into the air and dropped from a height, a brain injury attorney in Los Angeles can help you sue the manufacturer in a product liability action if you are able to show a manufacturing defect, a design defect, or a failure to warn.

Damages may be substantial in a brain injury case, and they can include both general and special damages in California. General damages are intangible losses like mental anguish, loss of consortium, and pain and suffering. Special damages are tangible costs, such as household services, property damage, medical bills, and lost income.

California follows the rule of comparative negligence, which means that an accident victim's compensation is reduced by his or her percentage of fault. Our Los Angeles brain injury attorneys can make sure that your degree of fault is not unfairly inflated. For example, if the jury assesses that a plaintiff's damages are $500,000, but he or she was 50% at fault, he can potentially recover up to $250,000 from the other responsible party or parties.

Under the traditional doctrine of joint and several liability, still followed in some states, any of the defendants can be held independently liable for the total damages award. However, California follows a modified approach to joint and several liability in the event that multiple parties are at fault for an accident victim's harm. Defendants can be held jointly and severally liable for economic damages, but they can be obligated to pay general damages (like pain and suffering) only up to their own percentage of fault.

Brain injuries are often catastrophic. Representation by a skillful Los Angeles attorney can make a difference to victims of car accidents and other unexpected harmful events. At Sharifi Firm, we represent injured individuals throughout Southern California, including in cities such as Temecula, San Bernardino, and Rancho Cucamonga. Contact us at (866) 422-7222 or via our online form for a free, no-obligation consultation.