Lawsuit and Traumatic Brain Injury: The Relationship Between Long-Lasting Sequelae and Financial Compensation in Litigants. Results From the PariS-TBI Study

Conclusion: Financial compensation was related to victims' long-term severity of impairment, although some extreme cases with severe disability were granted very poor compensation. Introduction Traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs at a high incidence with more than 50 million people sustaining a TBI each year worldwide (1). Related to this, people with TBI are frequently involved in a litigation with claim compensation proceedings because another person was partly or wholly at fault for causing the injury, in particular in the context of road traffic accidents. While lawsuits after TBI are frequent, research exploring how litigation and long-term TBI outcomes relate to each other is, on the contrary, quite rare (2). Litigants who sustained a TBI might hire a private attorney or conduct direct negotiation and settlements with insurance companies that both often recourse to some clinical expertise. Together, they will document the personal injury case in order that a monetary value is settled for the past, present and future damages and losses suffered. The health state and the social economic position in which the victim would have been if the accident had not occurred are considered to determine the personal compensation amount (and life rents when applicable) (3). Yet, settling such a monetary value entails numerous levels of complexities and final compensation amounts settled by the court or during out-of-court negotiations vary widely, at least within the F...
Source: Frontiers in Neurology - Category: Neurology Source Type: research