Law & Advocacy

Someone had a, got a broken arm, ended up because they had a busted knee from the original accident and then they fell because their knee was busted and broke their arm. They could go back and add that in. So that kind of brought to me with like brain injury is totally different, but there are some issues that don't show right away. Like aphasia may take a little while to show an, to make an appearance in your brain injury.

Different things like, so is there like a time limit to file additional claims? Additional things happen? How does that work?

One of the hardest things about brain injuries is we never really know the full story, right? And I think where a lot of lawyers miss the boat is they're not trying to identify 'em right off the bat. Um, we have a, a questionnaire. In fact, you could go to our law, our website right now at snellingsinjurylaw.com, and you can download a TBI checklist. And, you know, we've made it, uh, one of our goals to really inform the public about TBI because. Uh, as, as you guys well know mm-hmm.

Uh, you can be walking past somebody on the street and they look perfectly fine. Um, but they have all kinds of chaos going on in their lives. And it can be cognitively, it can be socially, it can be emotionally, and those things are really hard to identify unless you ask those specific questions. Mm-hmm. Right? And so one of the things that we do up front is we ask these specific questions.

Uh, we follow our own c. And we get people evaluated because the last thing we ever want to do is close out a claim, settle a claim, and, and the way that works is, hey, you're gonna get money, but you're gonna release any further claims. So if anything happens down the road, you're outta luck. The last thing we want to do is settle that claim without knowing everything that's out there, um, that could potentially have been caused by the crash or whatever incident there was.

And these are the people that have asked questions because, Their, uh, brain injury didn't really specifically happen because of an accident. Mm-hmm. But after an accident, it felt like they, like backtracked on their, um, on their experience and on their, um, recovery. So someone was like, um, have had a car accident a year after a stroke, and then the other, um, brain injury survivor had a TBI survivor that was caused by a car.

But then several years later, um, she ended up having like a rear-ended on her, I think on her bicycle.

And so, uh, in Texas we have what's called, you know, an eggshell plaintiff rule. Okay? Okay. Um, you take the plaintiff as you find them, and so say, uh, Carrie, say you're involved in a front end crash. Okay? Your seatbelt holds you, you're fine. All right? Mm-hmm. Maybe some bumps and bruises. Wasn't that big of a crash. I'm involved in the same crash. Well, I have a kidney transplant and that kidney sits right here on my front. Well, that's right where the seatbelt goes across, right?

And if I'm in that same crash and it lacerations my kidney and I have all kinds of medical expenses from that, well it doesn't matter. That, uh, I may be, uh, more of an eggshell plaintiff. Right? More fragile than you. They're still responsible for it. And how that relates to preexisting injuries is, let's say that someone has a, a spinal condition. Let's say they have degenerative disc disease, right? Which we kind of all do as we age our, our spines break down.

But say I have that and I'm not having any pain, then I'm involved in a, in a rear end crash, and all of a sudden the pain. Well, they're not responsible for my condition, but they are responsible for what they've done to exacerbate it. Right. Make it worse. Yeah. So they're responsible for the treatment to get me back to the way I was. And so if you have a brain injury victim who's then involved in a car crash, in fact, we have a couple of these cases right now.

Uh, the, the person who's at fault is respons. To get them back to the way they were or for any additional permanent injuries that they cause. Right. So they're not caused for, they're, they're not at fault for or responsible for what is, you know, up to that point. Right. But they are for anything after the crash. Yeah. Okay.

Maybe they're, like you said, maybe they're not physical, but cognitively or other health issues, like it's importance of sharing and how to, how to, what do you do? How do you say like this is because, Like of the car accident or whatever it is.

And if you're honest and you're forthcoming with your physician, you should be telling them, Hey, I am getting better here or, or I'm not. Right. Sometimes we can't prove it because it's. Not accurate, right? Um, so medical records are, are huge. One of the other things we do is we go and we interview what we call before and after witnesses, right?

This can be family members, this can be people like here at Bind who know you and see you on a daily basis and they know how you were before the crash and how you are now. And so that's another way that we can show, hey, look, you know, we, uh, we know this person. And before the crash they were actually doing a lot better. Here's, here's examples of what they were able to. After the crash, they can't, they've completely regressed and so we look at doing things like that. Okay, great.

Wish there was someone I could sue for that, but nah.

Now we can do more detailed scans where we're looking at different things. We can do SPECT scans and things like that. But for the most part, you know, unless you have a pretty severe tbi, It's not gonna show on a regular mri, and so we don't have imaging that we can compare. Obviously, if we have imaging, that makes it pretty easy. Sure. Right. Or at least it makes it easy to show a change. Now we still have to correlate the results, right, right.

And show that, hey, these symptoms are caused by this change in their brain. But yeah, with the brain, that's, yeah, that's one of the reasons I, I love brain injury cases is because they are difficult. They're a challenge, and I feel like that's where we can really add value to the injury.

Um, but like, what do you think would be like a great law for people to have in mind? Because sometimes, at least on a personal basis, I had no idea something happened to. But on my family-wise, I am so blessed that I had my stepfather who was involved in stuff similar to be an advocate for me because at the time, like my dad and my mom had no idea what is going on. But I think as a podcast, we are trying to educate people that there is something that can stand for them.

So as a lawyer and advocate, like what do you think is something. Um, people must know in regards to law or in regards to something that supports them. So in case something happens, you have to know that this is available.

So, from a legal standpoint, I would say, um, if you are involved in any kind of, uh, of an accident, whether it be a roadway accident, a, a premises liability, we know huge number of brain injuries are caused by falls. Mm-hmm. Right. You can always reach out to a personal injury attorney and it's free. Okay, Mo?

I, I don't know of any personal injury attorneys, certainly not any good ones that don't offer a free consultation, that won't talk to you on the phone or, or their team will talk to you on the phone and tell you, Hey, this, there is a potential claim here. Okay. So that's one avenue. Another avenue is, is resources like, Right. Brain Injury Network, um, with, with clubhouses here in, in the Dallas area in Plano, and then over in Fort Worth. Uh, it's a great resource, right?

There's tons of online resources Sure. And, um, social workers, right. Social workers can help put you in touch with, um, different insurances. So if, if you need help with on the Medicare, Medicaid, They can help there. So, um, off the top of my head, those are the ones that immediately come to mind. But thankfully we have the internet and I would, I would just encourage everyone to, to really advocate for yourself, right? No one is ever gonna know you as well as you do.

And don't just accept the first response that somebody tells you, whether it's a doctor, whether it's a lawyer, whether it's some other professional. Um, sometimes we're. Right. Sometimes we see things differently. Sure. Sometimes, you know, we may have, I may know a little bit more about brain injuries than other lawyers. They may know a little bit more about something else than I do, and so get several opinions. But at the end of the day, you have to be the one advocating for yourself.

You can't just let somebody else do it. Yeah,

I'm trying to figure out how to word this, um, that when you're first in the hospital that you. How do you make sure that the medical staff, that you're getting the proper documentation or that you're asking? Is there like any advice there?

Uh, and they have to go through and change it to positive if they're, if they see something. And so a lot of things get missed. Right. A lot of entries are incorrect. You know, they put left shoulder pain instead of right shoulder pain. They put your mail instead of a female. You know, there's just different things that happen. You can't do anything about that. The best thing that you can, Is explain fully everything. Don't try to be a tough guy.

Don't try to hide symptoms, which a lot of people do. I, a lot of it's self-preservation, right? We're scared. If we tell the doctor that we're suffering this, then oh my gosh, they might tell me bad news. Yeah. Well, it's way better to have the bad news while you're sitting there in the hospital than figure it out later when damage has already been done. So the best thing you can do to advocate for yourself is be fully transparent with the physicians, with the nurses.

And don't just let 'em blow you off. Right? Yeah. Demand answers. Tell 'em No, we're gonna do this until we figure out exactly what's going on and be persistent. Right? The, the squeaky wheel gets the grease right. Be that squeaky wheel. Okay. Uh, it works. And so that would probably be my, my best advice for advocating for yourself in that situation.

Like I had a stroke and right now I'm still registering for my second or for my license because it's been over two years and the law in Texas that I wish I could have prevented. But I have to take that test and I'm so freaked out about it. Like, what is something like, that's really my fear and I don't know whether it would be something involved with. How would it be best to prevent any situation?

And Carrie actually brought this up along with, um, one of our, our previous guests, Karl, um, how it was important to be going to a, getting a d p s, um, so.

They're gonna automatically blame you, but if you've done the proper things to again, take care of yourself, to make sure you go back, like my license, and when I went back there and did the driving test, I didn't have to do the writing, the reading, writing and reading test, just the driving. They put a designation on my license that says, obviously I can only drive a automatic. Because, um, I obviously can't push a clutch in anymore.

And you know, I only have one side that works, but so there's a letter on there. So if I get pulled over by the cops and I'm, they think I'm drunk, but it's just because my tbi, maybe I'm tired and it's, they'll know, okay, she can legally drive. So that's, I mean, Karl, I do it for a cya, but is that a law? Do you know?

I would certainly call the dps and maybe there's certain diagnosis codes that would require you to do that, but if so, I haven't seen them. Yeah. Um, but in terms of, of your fear of, of taking this driving test. Fear. Yeah. Fear, fear, fear. Hey, you know, that's, that's part of life is, is we gotta face our fears, right? Yeah. And I'll tell you, there's not a week that goes by where I don't have to do something. That I'm a little scared to do.

Yeah. And those are the weeks that typically end up being the better weeks, because when you face that fear, one of two things is gonna happen. You're gonna, let's say a good one. Yeah. You're gonna succeed. Hey, well, you're gonna succeed or you're gonna learn. Right. And say, you say you get in there and it's a disaster. Right.

I've had plenty of disasters personally, professionally, and it's really easy to just go beat yourself up and stick your head in the sand, and I'm never doing that again. Ever, ever. Yeah. But as you grow and, and as you have kind of that mindset shift of, you know what, that was a disaster. And it was a disaster because I didn't practice. Or I didn't spend enough time learning about that or Wow, I went about that the completely wrong way.

Yeah. Then those disasters all of a sudden call become what I call tuition. Right? That's tuition that I had to pay, and I've paid a lot of expensive tuition in terms of mistakes. Uh, but that's how I look at it, is it's a learning experience, right? Yeah. And so if you approach it with that mindset, I think all of a sudden the fear bleeds off a little. Yeah, and it's more of just like a, a challenge and say, Hey, I think I'm ready. I've done everything I can.

There's zero reason to be scared of this. Let's do it.

Can you request for home modifications that may benefit you because of the brain injury?

You wanna be able to protect yourself and your own family too. So make sure you have that, get as much of it as you can. Uh, because if the, if you're driving out here, especially in Texas, you may get hit by somebody who doesn't have any insurance. Mm-hmm. Or has minimum limits and. A quick trip to the emergency room and an ambulance is gonna eat up a whole lot of that. So, yeah. Uh, but yes, if we, you, a lot of times what we'll do is we'll hire what we call life care planners.

And life care planners will either be physicians or talk to the physicians to see what you're gonna need moving forward, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, we don't wanna leave this open because typically there's only one payment Sure. From a lawsuit. And that's at the time of release. And so we wanna make sure that everything's accounted for. And so that life care planner will do, they'll look at medication, they'll. Needs for imaging. They'll look at house modifications, driving modifications.

They'll look at things that you used to be able to do that you could do again with something, right? And so then they'll price all that out. They'll move it to present value, and then that's a number that we would give. To the, uh, opposing insurance company and that's how we account for those things.