How Important Is Following Doctor’s Orders For My Personal Injury Claim?

It is highly recommended that you follow the orders your doctor gives you, because the doctor is the expert; they are treating you, putting hands on you, evaluating you, and deciding what is best for you. With that said, personal injury attorneys understand that life happens, and that you may need to miss an appointment for an important childcare or work-related issue. I would simply advise you to be brutally honest when discussing gaps in treatment. If you explain to me that you missed some appointments because you needed to go to work, that will demonstrate your character and work ethic, which will show that you are not just trying to get some money out of your case. It will show that you are doing everything that you can to resume normalcy, and that’s important. For these reasons, I’m not usually terribly worried about short gaps in treatment. However, if the gap in treatment is a year or two and you told your doctor at one point that you were feeling completely fine, then you might have problems showing causation between the accident and the injury.

At our office, we will keep an open dialogue with you and always consider your story—not just the facts of your case. We spend a lot of time with our clients to understand and feel what it’s like to be them. I had a client who described how extremely difficult it was for them just to get out of bed each day; in order to really understand their experience, I actually went to their home just to see what it would be like to be them for a morning. In order to tell that client’s story in a meaningful way to a jury, I needed to experience it first.

What Factors May Cause My Personal Injury Case To Go Into Litigation?

The number one factor that may cause the need for litigation is a difference in opinion as to the value of the case. If your attorney’s opinion of the value of the case differs significantly from the insurance adjuster’s opinion of the value of the case, then litigation may be necessary. We spend a lot of time with our clients helping them decide whether or not litigation is a good choice. Generally, you only want to file a lawsuit if you think you’re going to get more money than you would from a settlement outside of court. For example, you might get a $100,000 settlement from taking a case to trial, but you need to deduct from that the cost of filing fees, mediation, and expert witnesses. After making that calculation, you may find that you would end up with less money by litigating. It’s very important to have this discussion with your attorney before deciding to litigate your case.

I’m not the type of attorney who will settle a case for less than it’s worth; I think every client should get the full amount of their damages. When looking at negotiation settlement cases, we never lose sight of the finality of the settlement amount. In other words, we know that we won’t be able to come back  10, 15, or 20 years later to reevaluate the settlement. For this reason, we always have to consider the client’s future needs. For example, if you are 30 years old and have injured your back in a car crash, we must consider what you will need when you are 60 or 70 years old.

For more information on Following Doctor’s Orders After Injury In FL, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (954) 546-7608 today.