What to Do during Your Personal Injury Case

Interviewer: What are some of the common mistakes that you’ve seen clients make that compromise their case? How do they unintentionally hurt it once it’s been filed?

See Your Doctor Regularly and Continue All Medically Recommended Treatments

Jack: People harm their case by going sporadically to the doctor or discontinuing very quickly after starting treatment. That’s the number one action to avoid.

Interviewer: I’m wondering too if someone is claiming neck injury, for instance, do you perhaps advise them to limit their physical activities.

You Should Continue Working, If Possible, While the Case Is Ongoing

Jack: Certainly, but you still have to live your life, and you do your activities to the extent that you can tolerate. I never tell people to stay out of work to help enhance their claim if they have to put food on the table.

Sometimes, you have to grin and bear it. Take a couple of Tylenol and take a hot bath when you get home. If you can no longer enjoy your life’s pleasures of bowling or skiing, that’s compensable. We try to get the insurance company to recognize that there’s a loss of enjoyment of many of those pleasures.

A Personal Injury Case Compensates an Individual for a Loss, Including Loss of a Pain-free Life, Loss of Physical Endurance and Loss of Enjoyment

Interviewer: A personal injury case doesn’t have to claim a loss of employment it can also include a loss of any enjoyment of your life?

How Much Is Your Injury Worth? A Claim Does Need to Be Quantified

Jack: Yes, you are absolutely right. But claims have to be quantified as well. You can’t quantify loss of physical activities unless you had a thousand dollar gym membership that you can’t use or you had an airplane ticket to go participate in a triathlon.

You can quantify a financial loss to you, but if you can’t pick up your child as before, that’s hard to quantify. But you do try to make sure that the insurance company appreciates that there is a loss even there even though you can’t put a dollar amount on it.

By Jack O’Donnell

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