Spinal cord injuries often are catastrophic in that they can significantly affect your overall quality of life. You may experience new physical limitations that may prevent you from working or engaging in activities you enjoy. Consulting an Orlando spinal cord injury lawyer may be highly advisable
While you may recover from some spinal cord injuries, others can cause irreversible and substantial impairment. As a result, you may become reliant on others for performing even the simplest tasks and activities of daily living. A professional injury attorney could help determine the viability of a personal injury claim and represent your interests.
Spinal cord injuries typically result from traumatic events, such as car accidents or falls. Other potential sources of spinal cord injuries can come from botched medical procedures, defective consumer products, and workplace accidents. Sports accidents and violent assaults may also cause spinal cord injuries.
The degree of severity of the spinal cord injury depends on the location of the injury on the spinal cord and the extent of the damage. For instance, bruising to the spinal cord may heal over time, but a trauma that completely severs the spinal cord may cause permanent impairment. Likewise, the higher up on the spinal cord that the injury occurs, the more extensive and widespread the paralysis likely is to the body. The potential long-term effects of a spinal cord injury can include:
Spinal cord injuries can result in the need for medical treatment, rehabilitation, and personal care, all of which can be extremely costly. Involving a spinal cord injury attorney in Orlando may be the most effective means of obtaining compensation for these significant losses.
Due to negligence, individuals who have sustained spinal cord injuries may have legal claims against any negligent parties. Any careless or reckless behavior of third parties that placed them in danger of severe injuries can constitute negligence. If the parties had a duty to act in a way that did not endanger the victims and failed to meet that duty reasonably, they may face liability for their actions.
Potential damages in spinal cord injury claims can include both economic and non-economic costs. Examples of financial losses are losses of current and future income due to an inability to return to work and medical bills related to the injuries. The costs of future medical treatment and personal care also may be items of compensation in a personal injury claim.
Some damages are non-economic, such as compensation for pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life. In the case of purposeful or intentional behavior, punitive damages may be available, although they can be subject to caps or limits on amounts in some situations. An attorney in Orlando may be able to determine all available forms of compensation in a spinal cord injury claim.
All personal injury claims are subject to a statute of limitations, or a deadline under state law by which injury victims must file their claims in court. Under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(3), injured parties typically have four years in which to bring their claims. If they do not file their claims within this timeframe, they risk being unable to seek any compensation related to their injuries.
State law does provide for exceptions to this general statute of limitations for personal injury claims based on negligence. In some cases, injury victims may have less time to file their claims before the statute of limitations bars them from filing claims. As a result, consulting legal counsel as quickly as possible following an accident that causes spinal cord injuries may be essential to maintaining a legal claim.
An Orlando spinal cord injury lawyer may be able to help you determine the cause of the accident and the identity of any potentially liable parties if you or a family member has sustained a spinal cord injury in an accident. This information can be crucial to determining how to proceed in your case.
Consulting legal counsel about your potential options for legal recourse can be an effective way of understanding the legal parameters of your situation. You can then make a more knowledgeable decision about filing your claim once you have received the answers to all your questions.
