Suffering a back injury can be devastating, resulting in intense physical pain, emotional distress, out-of-control expenses, and loss of income. If you have injured your back in an accident in the Houston area, whether in a car crash, slip and fall incident, workplace accident, or otherwise, you likely have many questions about your situation and options.
Here is what you should know about the various legal solutions available for back injury matters in Houston.
Filing a Personal Injury Lawsuit
Pursuing compensation by taking legal action against the responsible party is at the top of the list of the most common Houston back injury solutions. For instance, if you suffered spine trauma in a vehicle collision caused by a reckless driver, or slipped on a wet floor in a store, you would file a personal injury lawsuit against the driver or store respectively. Here is an overview of what a lawsuit involves:
Overview of the Litigation Process
The key stages include:
- Investigation & Demand Letter
- Attorney gathers police reports, medical records, witness statements
- Evidence used to establish fault, negligence
- An official demand letter was sent asking for a settlement
- Settlement Negotiations
- Lengthy back-and-forth talks exploring settlement options
- The goal is resolving before trial, but involves bluffing and patience
- Trial Preparation
- If an impasse is reached, aggressive trial preparation starts
- Includes depositions, documentation, court motions, and more
- Trial
- Lawsuit evidence and arguments presented before judge or jury
- The jury awards damages or the judge makes settlement rulings
While simpler cases may settle rapidly, complex back injury litigation with high damages can run 12-24 months as it grinds through procedures. Working with an attorney well-versed in strategically guiding cases ensures efficiency.
Compensation Categories
If your case succeeds in court or via settlement, the at-fault defendant will be ordered to pay compensation covering your financial and personal losses. With back injuries often being severe and having lasting impacts, damages awarded can be extensive, but getting what you fully deserve takes experienced legal help. Common categories include:
Economic or Special Damages
This covers quantifiable out-of-pocket losses related to your injury, like:
- Medical expenses from hospitalization, surgery, therapy
- Lost past and future income
- Loss of earning capacity
- Costs of at-home nursing care
- Rehabilitation costs
- Medical equipment and prescription expenses
Document these thoroughly as evidence for your lawyer.
Non-economic or General Damages
This covers the wider impacts back trauma has on your personal wellbeing, including:
- Physical pain and emotional suffering
- Loss of enjoyment of activities
- Mental anguish
- Loss of companionship
- Physical disability or disfigurement
- Lowered quality of life
Skilled lawyers ensure juries or judges account for how extensively an injury affects you. Seeking appropriate amounts takes conveying suffering clearly through testimony and documentation.
Punitive Damages
If negligence or actions causing your back injury are determined especially reckless or outrageous, courts may additionally award punitive damages to punish the defendant. These are rare and capped in Texas.
Unique Aspects of Back Injury Lawsuits
Spine and back accident cases have some unique situations to factor in for your attorney:
Proving Liability & Negligence
With bone, muscle, disc, and tendon complexity, causes of back injuries can be disputed without extensive investigations demonstrating factors like:
- Speeds, angles, and forces for vehicle collisions
- Building code violations exacerbating slip and fall gravity
- Failure to mitigate workplace risks
Obtaining Just Compensation
Grave back injuries often have permanent impacts, so attorneys must show long timeframes requiring:
- Continued medical treatment
- Family, social, and occupational disruption
- Psychological struggles with accepting disability
- Lifelong pain management
This permanent disability needs documentation from reputable medical experts.
Specialized Medical Evidence
Vertebrae, spinal cord, and back nervous system trauma require specific technical evidence like:
- Orthopedic assessments confirming herniations
- Surgical/rehabilitation records
- Longitudinal treatment plans
- Ergonomic, mobility life impairment reports
Lawyers need resources to obtain and correctly present such documentation.
Battling Insurance Company Downplaying
Protecting profits, insurers for at-fault parties exploit doubt around back injury ambiguity and recovery variability to deny proper compensation. Countering this requires litigation acumen.
As shown above, back injury cases have a greater level of complexity necessitating legal guidance.
Workers’ Compensation Claims
Another one of the most popular Houston back injury solutions is Workers’ Compensation Claims. This is for back injuries occurring in workplace contexts like strains from heavy lifting, falls at construction sites, collisions during deliveries, or other incidents. It bypasses the more hectic of the Houston back injury solutions – court litigation – and provides a path for a more administrative resolution.
Overview of the Workers’ Comp Claims Process
General steps include:
- Reporting Injury
- Claims Forms & Medical Reports Filed
- Facts Review & Settlement Calculations
- Resolution Offer or Hearing Scheduled
- Benefits Payment & Case Closure
The structured bureaucracy and focus on medical evidence simplify things versus civil lawsuits. Cases typically wrap up in months, not years, and as a result, this option doesn’t demand a lot of legal resources for back injury cases.
Workers’ Compensation Benefits
While rewards amounts are capped unlike personal injury suits seeking fuller damages, workers’ comp back injury claims provide support through:
Medical Costs
Pays for hospitalization, surgery, therapy, and medication costs related to the workplace injury.
Missed Wages
Provides a percentage of salary for work-time lost during recovery periods where you cannot work.
Disability Pay
Gives supplemental income for qualifying long-term or permanent disabilities stemming from the back trauma.
Rehabilitation Services
Covers physical therapy, mobility assistance training, and other rehabilitation support.
Death Benefits
For fatal back accidents, pays burial fees and provides dependency pay to spouses and children.
Be advised that Texas has stringent processes for obtaining workers’ compensation, including prompt reporting requirements. Thus, seeking Houston lawyer assistance for spinal injury legal matters when pursuing workers’ compensation in Houston is advisable if you want to ensure that your rights are protected.
Social Security Disability Assistance
Suffering certain grave injuries leading to declared disabilities makes one eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits under federal law. For back injuries, permanently debilitating injuries like:
- Loss of limb function
- Severe chronic pain
- Mobility restrictions
- Vocational impedance
Can qualify you for SSDI coverage spanning income replacement, retirement benefits, and medical assistance. This makes it one of the many Houston back injury solutions a lawyer can explore to get a back injury victim additional compensation.
Overview of Obtaining SSDI Benefits
The process involves extensive medical evaluations proving disability:
- Establishing Work-Prohibiting Impairment
- Assembling Claim Evidence – treatment records, doctor evaluations
- Claim Review by State Agency – approval/denial determinations
- Reconsiderations & Appeal Options – contesting unfavorable rulings
- Administrative Court Hearing – making your case before a judge
- Benefits Payment – if granted finally
While SSDI provides indispensable help for those whose abilities are impacted indefinitely, qualifying involves burdensome procedures. Retaining an SSDI lawyer well-versed in back injury details makes navigating complex regulations far smoother.
Importance of Attorney Specialization
As outlined above, obtaining fair compensation and legal closure for grievous back accident injuries involves myriad complexities – from proving negligence causation, battling insurance company deception, and demonstrating true disability suffering, to reconciling various benefit programs. One has to also know which Houston back injury solutions would be ideal under certain circumstances, and exactly which steps to follow in order to get what they deserve.
Addressing these dilemmas requires personal injury lawyers with specific backgrounds in back trauma cases. When vetting attorneys, you want an accomplished team able to leverage resources like:
- Reputable medical experts able to isolate injury mechanisms and endorse disability magnitudes needed for maximizing case values
- Ergonomic specialists able to assess lifestyle impediments to influence juries on suffering degrees
- Economic analysts can accurately project long-term impacts on income
Also, confirm extensive case records for past spine and back claims securing clients fair damages against difficult defense tactics. Locating the appropriately specialized lawyer pays dividends in outcome quality.
Suffering back injuries in unexpected Houston accidents undoubtedly uproots one’s stability temporarily, or permanently in grave instances. However, promptly consulting attorneys with experience exploring the Houston back injury solutions outlined above can restore a sense of control. With Houston lawyer assistance for spinal injury legal matters, you can navigate procedural complexities seamlessly to obtain assistance funds, disability benefits, accountability for negligent parties, compensation for suffering, and ultimate closure.
Contact Us
If you have a back injury that was caused by someone else’s negligence, you may be entitled to compensation. At Husain Law + Associates — Houston Accident & Injury Lawyers, P.C. we specialize in ensuring that back injury victims, just like you, get compensated for their pain and suffering. Therefore, we are best placed to ensure that you get what you deserve. Call us today at (713) 804-8149 to get started.
