Find a Brain Injury Attorney in South Dakota
The traumatically brain injured constitute an ever growing segment of our population. Each year, approximately 1.4 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury in the United States. The costs of a brain injury are not purely financial. Often, a brain injury starts a downward spiral in the survivor’s life where the emotional and physical ramifications quickly exceed the financial ones.
Once the acute care period is over and the patient is stabilized, the resources available to the patient can substantially impact treatment and recovery. In a perfect world, every patient would have unlimited access to the best resources available to meet their needs. Ours unfortunately is not a perfect world.
The consequences of a South Dakota traumatic brain injury are far reaching. Not only are there treatment costs associated with the recovery from the acute injuries, but there are the costs of long term care and supervision, the lost support to the family unit that the injured party previously contributed, the increased physical demands placed upon the caregivers and family of the survivor to meet the needs of their injured loved ones, and the family having to step into the breach of the role that the injured person previously contributed to the family. These costs often pale in comparison to the human losses of the injured.
The analysis will focus on the sources of funding for treatment and assistance to the traumatically brain injured from the person(s) who caused them harm.
Bad Judgment in SD Can Have Lasting Effects
Some people will do almost anything to avoid being held responsible for their actions. They cannot hide from South Dakota law. The law holds all persons who caused the injury or harm responsible for causing, in whole or in part, the injuries. The goal of the legal system is to return the injured party to the same position they would have been in “but-for” the negligence or breach of the wrongdoer. To be legally responsible for the injuries of another, a person’s behavior need not be the sole cause of the harm. The standard in South Dakota is whether a person’s negligence was the proximate cause of the harm. Negligence refers to a person’s failure to follow a duty of conduct imposed by law. For instance, every person is under a duty to use ordinary care to protect themselves and others from injury or harm. Ordinary care means that degree of care which a reasonable and prudent person would use under the same or similar circumstances to protect themselves or others from injury or damage. A person’s failure to use ordinary care is negligence. Proximate cause is a cause which in a natural and continuous sequence produces a person’s injury and one which a reasonable and prudent person could have foreseen would probably produce such an injury or some similar injurious result. There can be more than one proximate cause for a harm. Therefore, the injured person does not need to prove that the negligent person was the sole proximate cause, only that the person’s negligence was a proximate cause.
The obvious answers aren’t always the only answers. Persons that set in motion a series of circumstances which result in harm or injury understandably prefer to not be held accountable. When they are held accountable, the injured person is often able to afford and obtain all the medical care which would be beneficial to them. Those suffering brain injuries would prefer not to go to court. Unfortunately, big business and insurance companies know that as well. When they are not willing to stand up for their insured’s and employees negligence, brain injury survivors must turn to the jury to make them "whole" by balancing the harm they caused with a comparable amount of money. An additional benefit is that the person responsible for the harm is paying for the care, not the taxpayers, public or private benefits.
SD Traumatic Brain Injuries are often referred to as the silent epidemic. A person’s life can be substantially and dramatically affected by a brain injury. By holding the person(s) whose negligence contributed to the injury accountable, those harmed can obtain necessary treatment and we the public will not be left holding the bag. Holding people accountable has the additional benefit of encouraging safer behavior for everyone.
If you have a loved one who is a victim of a traumatic brain injury, and you have no legal representation, then now is the time to call. Toll Free Phone Number 1-877-220-0550.
