Crosley Law puts world-class expertise in brain injury cases to work for you.
Brain injuries can change your life in countless ways. When someone else’s negligence, misconduct or reckless actions caused your brain injury, you deserve answers—and fair compensation. A San Antonio brain injury lawyer can help.
Our goal is always to ensure our clients’ financial stability. If you’ve been injured or lost a loved one because of someone else’s carelessness, especially if a brain injury was involved, contact Crosley Law today for a free consultation.
Brain injury cases are scientifically demanding. Without an experienced brain injury lawyer at your side, you may not get the testing you need, or overlook critical medical evidence and facts you need to prove the value of your personal injury claim.
Attorney Tom Crosley and the team at Crosley Law are national leaders in brain injury litigation. We painstakingly research our clients’ cases using cutting-edge tactics and consult with world-class experts. We’ve built an impressive track record of success for clients who suffer brain injuries, and we frequently educate other lawyers on brain injury cases and other personal injury issues.
A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is any external force or trauma that results in injury to the brain. Most brain injury cases that we handle are also TBIs, although it is possible to suffer a brain injury for other reasons (such as illness or oxygen deprivation).
Most TBIs are the result of the brain jostling within the skull violently after a force or impact. This can cause bleeding, bruising, or shearing of the nerve fibers (axons). Other TBIs may be caused by an object penetrating the skull and damaging the brain directly.
Traumatic brain injury victims do not always suffer a loss of consciousness. Sometimes, the victim will simply feel dazed or woozy at first, but they may develop additional TBI symptoms later on. While some traumatic brain injuries create symptoms right away, others take time to develop.
Doctors will classify brain injuries as either mild, moderate, or severe, typically using the following criteria:
While TBIs are often classified just hours or days after the injury, long-term outcomes for people with mild TBI are highly variable. While most people make a full recovery, some experience long-term, or even permanent, post-concussion syndrome with life-changing symptoms.
In other words, don’t be misled by the word “mild.” Even if you are only diagnosed with a mild TBI, it is still a serious brain injury that could have long-term consequences for your life.
It’s essential to seek medical care as soon as you notice symptoms after a car accident or other personal injury, even if you only have “minor” symptoms (like a dull headache). Sometimes, these seemingly mild symptoms are warning signs of a severe, catastrophic injury.
Sometimes you might not notice telltale symptoms of a brain injury until a few days or even a few weeks after the crash. Symptoms can be delayed, and certain cognitive deficits or mood disorders might not be apparent until a person attempts to go back to work or engage in activities they used to enjoy.
If a loved one has been in a car wreck, be on the lookout for signs of a brain injury in the coming days and weeks.
Yes. Normal brain scans are expected in the case of a mild TBI. Because the damage to brain cells in a mild TBI happens on a microscopic level, conventional brain scans like MRIs or CT scans usually aren’t sensitive enough to detect them. A “normal” scan result doesn’t always mean a normal brain.
If damage to the brain is visible on an MRI or CT, that almost always means the patient has a moderate to severe TBI. Identifying a mild TBI on a brain scan usually requires the use of more sensitive (and far more expensive) imaging technologies that aren’t available or don’t get run in a typical hospital ER.
Common symptoms of a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) may include:
You don’t necessarily need to experience all these symptoms to be diagnosed with a mild TBI. For example, many people never lose consciousness, but still develop other physical, emotional, and cognitive problems.
Mild TBIs are often difficult to diagnose because symptoms aren’t always obvious to outside observers, and sufferers may have normal-looking MRI and CT scans. Partly as a result, most contentious legal claims following brain injuries are for mild TBIs, rather than moderate or severe TBIs (which have more severe symptoms that are impossible to dispute).
If you believe you may have suffered a TBI, seek medical attention as soon as possible.
A majority of people with mild brain injuries do fully recover within a period of weeks to a few months. However, a significant minority of brain injury victims continue to experience life altering brain injury symptoms (post-concussive syndrome) for six months or longer after the initial head injury.
Common symptoms of post-concussive syndrome include:
Typically, doctors will diagnose post-concussion syndrome if three or more classic symptoms are present for a sustained period of time after a concussion (or mild TBI).
Most people with post-concussive syndrome do eventually get better, even without treatment. However, about 15 to 20 percent of patients develop a persistent post-concussive syndrome that lasts six months or more. Further, most doctors agree that if you are still experiencing symptoms two years after the initial head injury, they will likely persist for the rest of your life.
The leading causes of brain injury include falls, motor vehicle crashes, being struck by an object, and assaults. Those causes represent more than 80 percent of all known causes of TBI based on emergency room admission data collected in the United States.
It’s important to understand that you do not necessarily need to hit your head. Brain injuries happen when the brain experiences a forceful impact with the inside of the skull. If your head suddenly whips back and force (whiplash) in a car accident, for example, that sudden acceleration and deceleration of your head may be enough to cause a closed head injury.
A child who suffers a brain injury is likely to have a worse prognosis than an adult. However, noticeable symptoms may not become obvious until months or even years later.
A child’s brain is rapidly developing. The frontal lobe, which is responsible for executive functioning and decision-making, doesn’t truly begin to develop until adolescence and beyond. As a result, very young children who suffer serious brain injuries may continue to hit normal development milestones. Cognitive impairments might not be obvious until later in childhood and adolescence.
If you are pursuing a personal injury case for a child who has suffered a brain injury, it is important to work with an attorney who understands the differences between child and adult brain injuries and has experience handling childhood TBI cases successfully.
The best time to call an experienced lawyer is as soon as possible after the accident.
When someone else’s recklessness or misconduct causes devastating injuries to you or a loved one, you deserve accountability and compensation. Unfortunately, TBI victims and their loved ones often discover that their legal claims aren’t as simple as they hoped.
Brain injuries are often “invisible,” meaning it can be difficult for someone other than the injured person and their loved ones to fully comprehend the seriousness of the injury. Older MRI and CT machines can’t always identify microtrauma, and many auto accident victims struggle with misdiagnosed or undiagnosed brain injuries. This can lead to insurance companies significantly undervaluing (or outright denying) insurance claims, even in serious brain injury cases.
To fight back, you’ll need a brain injury lawyer who understands TBIs and has access to leading-edge technologies, experts, and scientific research.
Because many doctors and hospitals don’t have access to the newest TBI diagnostic tools, it’s important to work with a brain injury lawyer who understands this rapidly developing medical field. At Crosley Law, we work with researchers and doctors who are on the leading edge of neuroscience to help resolve our clients’ personal injury claims.
Our San Antonio brain injury lawyers rely on the latest technology and research in almost every TBI case. We use our knowledge to explain your injuries, calculate your damages, and build effective trial presentations.
When you work with the team at Crosley Law, we’ll obtain all the investigative reports and documentation related to your brain injury. We’ll carefully prepare your legal claims using all the resources we have available, including:
These legal and technological assets help us to prove your TBI’s causes and severity, which lets us put a precise dollar figure on every cost and loss that you’ve suffered because of your head trauma.
We also act quickly. We know the insurance adjuster will try to delay your claim as much as possible, hoping you’ll cave and take a lowball settlement. You can’t wait for help and compensation. That’s why our TBI attorneys do everything in their power to push our clients’ cases forward and prepare every case as if it’s going to trial from day one.
At Crosley Law, we understand that winning a brain injury case, especially one where the injury is not outwardly visible, requires commitment, dedication, and hard work. We apply our knowledge of complex medical fields, including neuroradiology, neuropsychology, neurology, and injury rehab, to our clients’ claims. Because of our track record of success handling complex brain injury claims, other lawyers frequently refer brain injury victims to Crosley Law.
TBI claims require careful calculations of the potential damages. We take a comprehensive approach to brain injury claims, and we start by identifying all potential sources of compensation. This process includes investigating and documenting:
Many of the largest cases Crosley Law has ever handled are brain injury cases. For example, we negotiated a $30 million settlement against a negligent apartment complex for the family of a young child who suffered a life-changing brain injury. Major factors that influence how much a case is worth include:
Severe brain injuries can have a profound impact on a person’s ability to function and live their best life. But because TBIs are also “invisible injuries,” it can be difficult to prove to an insurance company or jury how severe your symptoms truly are. Unfortunately, this often leads to head injury victims losing their cases or settling for far less than they truly deserve.
At Crosley Law, we have made learning the science of brain injuries a core part of our practice, and we work extensively with doctors, research scientists, economists, life care planners, and other experts who specialize in brain injury cases. We are ready to fight for our clients to ensure they get the best possible settlement or verdict for their TBI injuries.
Even if you have a strong claim, you need to act quickly. In Texas, you only have two years from the date of a TBI to file a personal injury lawsuit. If you miss this deadline, which is sometimes called the statute of limitations, you may lose your right to compensation forever.
It’s nearly impossible for victims to sort out all the complex issues in a brain injury claim on their own. When you work with Crosley Law, you can focus on your physical and emotional recovery, not the details of your case or dealing with the insurance company. We deliver outstanding service, and we’ll continue to help you even after your brain injury lawsuit has concluded.
Our Texas brain injury lawyers go the extra mile to make wrongs right and get the justice our clients deserve. Have a case you need help with? Call us today.