Let me share a story with you. When a personal injury action settles, and there are minors involved (minors being persons under the age of 18), the Court will need to approve the settlement. 
The reason the personal injury settlement needs to be approved by a personal injury law judge, is because the Court wants to ensure that minors aren’t taken advantage of. Imagine what would happen if….
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I’m often asked: Hey Brian Goldfinger Personal Injury Lawyer: How do your fees work in a car accident case? Good question.
For starters, we take on about 99% of our cases on a contingency fee basis. This means that you don’t have to pay for your car accident or brain injury case until your case settles. All of our consultations are free free free. What else do you know of in life that’s free? Love? OK. You got me there. But in all seriousness, very few lawyers provide services on a contingency fee basis because of the inherent risk involved with the case. A personal injury lawyer Toronto will invest a lot of time, money and energy into building your personal injury case and risk getting nothing if they don’t recover any money for you.
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Brain Injury Claims are the most serious type of personal injury claim. Brain Injury can render a car accident victim with impaired memory, concentration, ability to process information, dizziness, fatigue, speech impairments, blurred vision, depression, ringing in the ears, moodiness, sleep problems, taste problems, anxiety and other cognitive injuries which only the accident victim himself can truly understand and appreciate.
Brain injured accident victims may ot have the same clear tell tale signs of injury symptoms which people who have broken bones in accidents might have. Case in point. If you’ve broken your femur bone (leg) in a car accident, you will be placed in a cast. One you’re in a cast, it will send a clear signal to the rest of the world that you’ve been injured (perhaps in a car accident, boating accident, or slip and fall accident). But there is no such thing for a cast or crutch for a brain injured accident victim. Some brain injured accident victims are physically unimpaired, but mentally, they’re catastrophically injured.
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Brain injury is serious.
I could end this blog posting there, but you’re probably craving more. I mean, sometimes reading about personal injury law can be so gosh darn enterntaining.
Goldfinger Injury Lawyers gets tons of calls a day from prospective clients. Of all the calls we get; it’s those calls which involve brain injury claims which can be the trickiest to handle.
When you break your leg, or arm in a car accident; you know it’s broken. The x-ray shows it; or the bone might be protruding out of place; or the area that’s been hit might be swollen.
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The big story around the NHL and sporting news these days all focuses on the health of Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Sid The Kid is arguably the greatest hockey player on the planet. Crosby hasn’t played on a regular basis since he was injured in the Winter Classic on January 1, 2011. He was diagnosed with a concussion. He has since been diagnosed with a soft tissue injury in his neck. He’s been kept out of the line up for basically the entire season (except for a handful of games).
Sidney’s health has been covered by sports fans, the national media and personal injury lawyers across Canada. It’s a compelling story on so many levels. From a personal injury stand point, Sidney, sustained a concussion. A concussion is a head injury.
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I can’t believe I’m writing this: but I have to give hockey full credit. When it comes to shedding light on brain injury for the general public and in the mainstream media; there’s been no better source over the past few months. So relish it now while you can hockey fans. Your sport has done some good for society as a whole.
Sidney Crobsy’s post concussion syndrome made headlines last week. This week, it’s the investigation into deceased NHL tough-guy Derek Boogaard’s death. An autopsy of Mr. Boogaard’s brain showed chronic traumatic encephalatopy (commonly referred to as CTE). CTE is a close relative to Altzheimer’s disease. It’s believed that Mr. Boogaard’s CTE came as a result of taking so many blows, shots, and impacts to his skull. Symptoms of CTE include memory loss, depression, impulsiveness, mood swings and even addictions. These are common symptoms which we personal injury lawyers see in our clients who have sustained traumatic brain injuries.
More than 20 deceased professional NFL football players and numerous deceased boxers have been diagnosed with CTE in the past decade. Doctors opine that had Mr. Boogaard lived a longer, his CTE would have worsened resulting in middle age dementia. Imagine that: middle age dementia on account of playing hockey.
Teamates reported that Boogaard fell asleep while playing cards on the team plane; passed out in corners of the locker room; and was known for being late for workouts and practice. Not habits of a professional athlete. But perhaps, this can all be explained by Boogaard’s CTE. The reports of Boogaard’s behaviour may seem out of the ordinary, but they are common occurrence for anyone experiencing or living with somebody who has experienced a traumatic brain injury.
Now take the fact that Boogaard was a multi million dollar professional athlete with access to the best rehabilitation facitilties money can buy. He had a team of coaches, trainers, doctors, and therapists at his disposal. He was not some oridinary Joe who was just involved in a car accident sustaining a closed head traumatic brain injury.
The sad thing in all of this is there are thousands of Ontarians each year who sustain head injuries. They have common symptoms to Boogaard. Like Boogaard, they have problems with memory, fatigue, mood, addiction, depression, anxiety and other common head injury symptoms. Yet, they don’t recieve an ounce of attention which the Boogaard story, or the Crosby story have recieved over the past month. And that’s why myself, and countless other personal injury lawyers across Ontario have tipped their hats to the NHL: for shedding light on brain injury and the devastating impact it has on accident victims and their families.
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Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog