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First things first. What are soft tissue injuries?
Let’s say you are driving down the street and traffic slows, you slow, but the driver behind you doesn’t. He rear-ends your vehicle. Your head snaps forward and back and you feel a burning pain in your low back and your neck hurts. Chances are, your Tennessee or Georgia rear-end collision just caused you to suffer a soft tissue injury.
Read more about rear-end collisions All About Rear-End Accident Claims & Injury Compensation blog post
According to Johns Hopkins Medical Center article, soft tissue injuries are things like contusions (bruises), sprains, tendonitis, bursitis, stress injuries and strains. They hurt, but they can’t be seen on an x-ray like a broken bone. Despite the very real pain caused by these injuries, generally, they don’t need surgery and your doctor can make you better with anti-inflammatory medicine and physical therapy.
The Challenge Of Proof In A Soft Tissue Injury Case
Insurance companies love soft tissue injury cases because they think they can convince a jury that the victim is not really hurt. Why? Because in almost all soft-tissue cases, proof that our client suffered a soft tissue injury from a Georgia or Tennessee Car wreck must come from the client. Unlike a broken bone on an X-ray or stitches or surgical records, soft juries can’t see strained and sprained muscles. Therefore, our client’s description of his or her injuries is very important. Part of job is to help our soft tissue injured clients to explain accurately what the crash did to their bodies and avoid making mistakes when talking about their injury.
Protecting Against Errors
We want to make sure our client never says the wrong thing that could prevent us from getting a good result for our client. Our protection plan starts with the very first meeting with our client.
THE INITIAL INTERVIEW
PRIOR HISTORY
During the first interview with our client, we ask our client to tell us about three things:
a. Prior injuries;
b. Prior claims; and
c. Prior lawsuits.
If the client has any of these things in his background, does it spell doom for her case? OF COURSE NOT. But we need to know these things so we can decide ow to handle this information and aren’t blindsided by the information should we need to go to trial.
We always need to know if the client suffered from pre-injury neck or back pain. (It is very unusual for people over 30 not to have had back or neck pain at some point in their lives-so don’t worry if you did, we know how to handle it.)
We need to know about our client’s driving record. Its no big deal if the client has a speeding ticket or two in their background. But a DUI might be a different story. We need to know whether the client has a criminal record. Remember, insurance companies have access to all kinds of data, including driving and criminal records. If we have to go to trial, its important that our client is straightforward and tells the complete truth to the jury.
LOSS INCOME
Next, we find out if our client is claiming lost income and we explore how to prove it. As part of this process, its always important to know if he or she filed tax returns. If the client didn’t, we can fix it, but we need to know about a problem to fix a problem.
RECORDED STATEMENTS
The next point we cover is whether our client has given the insurance company a recorded statement.
We want to know what our client said to the insurance adjuster and figure out if we need to amend the statement or clarify what our client said in the statement.
Read soon HOW WE MAXIMIZE OUR CLIENTS’ SOFT TISSUE DAMAGE CASE – PART II for more on what we can do to maximize the recovery in these difficult cases. If you have a Tennessee or Georgia car wreck case that resulted in soft tissue injuries and it wasn’t your fault, and you want to know more about how to maximize your recovery, give Dennis & Winningham Law a call at 423-892-5533 or fill out one of contact forms. Our award-winning attorneys would love to talk to you. We are happy to help even if you don’t hire us.
