Average Traumatic Brain Injury Settlement
The average settlement for traumatic brain injury is $700,000 to $1.2 million, according to our own data. However, every case is unique, and our clients have recovered amounts above and below this range. The most accurate way to determine how much your traumatic brain injury case is worth is to meet with one of our nationally recognized Pennsylvania brain injury lawyers.
Our Traumatic Brain Injury Settlements
We are passionate about helping clients, no matter how much effort it takes. Over 30 years of helping clients obtain fair settlements for TBI, we have built a record of recovering millions of dollars for our injured clients.
In a recent case, we obtained a $2.9 million settlement for a client struck by a corporate box truck while riding his motorcycle on Street Road in Bensalem. The truck had crossed two lanes of traffic into our client’s lane. Our client suffered a life-altering TBI and facial fractures. We settled the case the day after mediation by uncovering that the defendant failed to offer formal driver training or implement safety policies and procedures.
Our other successful TBI case results include the following:
- $10 million traumatic brain injury settlement for a tow truck driver who suffered brain and spine injuries in a Philadelphia truck accident
- $1 million for brain injuries sustained in a Bucks County car accident
- $470,000 for brain injuries sustained in a WaveRunner accident
- $242,500 for a brain injury from a minor impact rear-end accident
- $195,000 for a brain injury from a Bucks County bicycle accident
Types of Brain Injury Settlements
No matter the type of accident giving rise to your traumatic brain injury, you may be entitled to substantial compensation if the injury causes significant medical bills, disabilities that keep you from working, or negative effects on your quality of life. Our award-winning team of attorneys has won substantial compensation for clients left with brain injuries stemming from a variety of accident types.
Slip and Fall Brain Injury Settlements
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly half of all TBI hospitalizations result from falls. Older adults are more likely to fall and require hospitalization from falls compared to other age groups. However, our Pennsylvania slip and fall attorneys have represented clients of all ages who fell and suffered traumatic brain injuries.
To recover compensation, you must prove your fall happened because the owner’s negligence resulted in a hazardous condition, such as wet floors, poorly maintained parking lots, broken stairs and steps, poor lighting, or tripping hazards. These cases can be challenging because property owners and insurance companies tend to blame victims for falls. However, we have recovered significant compensation for clients who suffered brain injuries from falls.
Workers’ Comp Brain Injury Settlements
Workplace injuries that may lead to traumatic brain injury are especially common on construction sites. Common construction accidents that may lead to TBI include the following:
- Slip and falls
- Falling objects
- Being caught between objects
- Accidents with heavy machinery or motor vehicles
Construction workers are at high risk of falling from heights, often because of defective scaffolding, ladders, or safety equipment. These types of incidents can also occur in other workplaces.
Compensation for a traumatic brain injury at work typically comes from workers’ compensation. However, our knowledgeable Pennsylvania workers’ compensation lawyers may also be able to file a traumatic brain injury lawsuit on your behalf if someone other than your employer caused the accident, such as a contractor, the manufacturer of a defective product, or the property owner.
Sports-Related Brain Injury Settlements
Every year, millions of teens experience concussions from youth sports. However, the pervasiveness of these injuries does not diminish their seriousness. While a concussion is also called mild traumatic brain injury, the effects are often far from mild. A concussion can turn into post-concussive syndrome. It can affect your quality of life and cause disabilities for months or years. It is crucial to avoid returning to play until a doctor clears you. A subsequent head injury before the original has healed carries a high risk of serious complications or death.
If you or your child has sustained a brain injury during a recreational activity, our caring and skilled Pennsylvania sports injury lawyers can help you pursue compensation.
What Factors Determine Settlement Amounts?
While it’s difficult to estimate an average settlement for a traumatic brain injury, some common factors may affect your case:
- Injury severity: The more severe the injury, the higher a traumatic brain injury settlement is likely to be. However, even mild traumatic brain injuries can result in long-term symptoms that make it difficult to work or to enjoy life as you once did. Post-concussion syndrome, for example, can last for years.
- Projected medical expenses: The value of a traumatic brain injury case largely depends on the total medical bills and future medical expenses you are expected to incur. This could include the costs of hospitalization, therapy, pharmaceuticals, home health expenses, modifications to your home to make it handicap accessible, or other long-term living arrangements. Long-term care costs for a traumatic brain injury can cost millions of dollars over a lifetime.
- Age: Young victims who are expected to require medical support and therapy for many more years and the expertise of a child brain injury lawyer often receive higher settlements.
- Loss of future income: If you can’t work or have to take a job with lower pay due to your injuries, you may seek compensation for the loss of your earning potential.
- Pain and suffering: Traumatic brain injury settlements take into account non-economic damages, such as the amount of pain and suffering you have endured. If you have recurring pain and headaches, memory loss, problems concentrating, or cannot enjoy activities you once did, you may be awarded more money.
- Liability: If you are at least partially at fault for the accident that contributed to your injury, the damages you can recover will be impacted. Pennsylvania is a modified comparative negligence state, meaning the damages awarded are reduced in proportion to your share of the fault. For example, if you suffered $100,000 in damages and are 25 percent at fault for the accident, you can only recover $75,000.
- Gross negligence: You may also receive punitive damages when the court determines that the at-fault party recklessly disregarded your safety.
- Insurance policy limitations: The settlement amount you receive typically depends on the amount of applicable insurance coverage. Our attorneys can determine which policies apply to your situation and pursue all avenues for compensation.
Accepting a Brain Injury Settlement
Insurance companies don’t have your best interest in mind. Their interest is the bottom line, and they will likely offer much less than you deserve, hoping you take less than your case is worth.
Don’t settle for an offer that won’t cover your financial needs over the long term. A study by Northwestern University estimates that the lifetime cost of treatment for a traumatic brain injury is between $85,000 and $3 million. Even though personal injury cases can be long and frustrating, it’s in your best interest to hold out for the settlement you deserve.
Accepting a Settlement Too Soon Can Cost You
If you accept a settlement before you understand the full impact of your TBI, you could find out too late that your TBI is more serious than you initially thought. It can take several weeks or months for doctors to determine whether you will have long-term complications.
When you accept a settlement, the insurance company will require you to sign away your right to seek additional compensation in the future, even if unexpected complications arise. If such complications prevent you from working or incur costly medical expenses, you will have no recourse from the at-fault parties. Before you consider any settlement, call our award-winning team of attorneys at (215) 642-2335 for a free consultation.
“So traumatic brain injuries are a silent killer. Many times, we get a lot of clients from these motor vehicle crashes that really don't know that they suffered a traumatic brain injury. These brain injuries can be a lack of balance, headaches, or fatigue, based on person to person. It's really important to understand who this person was before and who they were after.”
How Our Attorneys Handle Pennsylvania Brain Injury Cases
Our motto at Cordisco & Saile is “People come first.” As a client, you are like family to us. We see you as a person first and an accident victim second. We try to remove as much stress from the process as possible. Our goal is to prevent you from having to do anything except rest and recover with confidence that your case is in the capable hands of experienced attorneys who care about you and your family.
When we take on your traumatic brain injury lawsuit, we do the following:
- Launch a full-scale investigation to determine the causes of your accident and identify the parties responsible.
- Work with forensic experts, professional medical witnesses, life care planners, and financial consultants to prove liability, establish the extent of your injuries, and calculate your damages.
- Gather additional evidence to support your case, including eyewitness interviews, video footage, and photographic evidence.
- Analyze the available insurance coverage.
- Negotiate a settlement or take your case to trial if the liable parties refuse to pay fair compensation.
Most brain injury lawsuits settle, but our attorneys are always well-prepared to take your case to trial if necessary.
A brain injury lawsuit can end in two ways: the insurance company will agree to a favorable settlement, or we can take the case to trial before a judge or jury. The vast majority of traumatic brain injury cases are settled with the insurance company before they ever reach the courtroom.
Personal injury cases are complicated, and their success depends on the quality of information gathered and the timeline by which it’s done. That’s why it’s so important to hire a personal injury lawyer with extensive knowledge of how the process works.
Here’s what Cordisco & Saile LLC can do for you:
- Help determine damages: We track your existing expenses and hire experts to estimate your future medical and financial needs. Our team can also calculate any non-economic damages you are entitled to.
- Investigate: It’s our job to learn everything we can about how your accident occurred. We may consult specialists in accident reconstruction, manufacturing liability, and safety. We can determine who is liable, including vehicle manufacturers, retail businesses, or medical care facilities.
- Insurance policy examination: Your insurance policies may help cover some of your expenses. For example, if you have uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage or a personal injury protection policy, you may be eligible for compensation on top of any settlement you receive.
- Negotiate: We notify the insurance company of your upcoming claims, providing an outline of the key points of your claim and your demand for compensation. Our next step is to negotiate until we reach a fair and just settlement.
- Litigation: If we cannot negotiate a fair settlement, we can file suit and take your case to trial.
When an insurance company makes an offer or a defense makes an offer to settle the case and we accept the offer, we feel it’s fair value, generally what’s the next step is to sign a release. A release is just a legal document saying for this amount of money I’m going to give up all claims against you.
After that release is signed we generally have to tender that to the defense and within a week or two they’re going to tender a check back to us and that check is made out usually to our firm and the client. That needs to be deposited into our attorney trust account and has to clear for a certain amount of time under ethics rules.
And during that time we prepare what’s called a schedule of distribution which is basically an accounting of what came in, our legal fees, all the expenses that come out, and the net amount to the client. That’s explained and gone over by our attorneys with the client. The client generally signs that, and then and once the check’s cleared we can distribute the check.
Sometimes there medical bills that need to be negotiated on behalf of the client. Sometimes there’s medical liens that need to be compromised. Summon process doesn’t just end when you sign the paper and you accept an offer.
What we do is we then compromise any outstanding medical bills. We’re calling every medical provider that you treated at and for whatever reason if your insurance doesn’t cover it, we go in and we contact them and ask them on your your behalf, to lower that bill.
At the end of the day that doesn’t come to us that comes directly to you. We’re not doing our job if we’re not maximizing the amount that you walk away with at the end of the day. We’re here to do one thing and that’s adequately compensate our client that has enlisted us in their fight.
Why Choose Cordisco & Saile LLC?
We are proud to announce the selection of one of our attorneys, Michael Saile, to the Brain Injury Association of America’s (BIAA) Preferred Attorneys Program. This is an exclusive database comprised of expert brain injury lawyers practicing in personal injury. Cordisco & Saile LLC has been selected as a personal injury expert in Pennsylvania.
The lawyers at Cordisco & Saile, LLC have a track record of success with brain injury cases and are dedicated to providing unparalleled support to injury victims and their loved ones. We’re a nationally recognized and award-winning team of attorneys. Our attorneys:
- Managing Parter Michael Saile is apart of the BIAA’s Preferred Attorney program
- Have been recognized in the National Trial Lawyers Top 100
- Are ranked in the Top 1% of Lawyers by the National Association of Distinguished Counsel
- Are recognized by the National Institute of Trial Advocacy
- Have been featured in Suburban Life Magazine for being among the region’s top attorneys
$2.9 million
which involved a client who suffered a traumatic brain injury after a motorcycle accident
$10 million
after the client sustained multiple injuries, including a traumatic brain injury
Get Support for Your Traumatic Brain Injury Lawsuit
Our award-winning team of personal injury lawyers never stops fighting for injured accident victims in Bucks County, Montgomery County, the Lehigh Valley, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and beyond. We know you only get one shot to bring your claim, and we will not take it lightly when you trust us to fight for the traumatic brain injury settlement you deserve.
Call us today at (215) 642-2335 or contact us online to schedule your free consultation.
