Getting Fair Compensation for Nerve Damage After a Car Accident

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Car accidents can cause a wide range of injuries, leaving victims with everything from broken bones and lacerations to traumatic brain injuries and nerve damage. If you experience tingling, numbness, and weakness in parts of your body after a crash, you may have suffered nerve damage.

If you’ve suffered any sort of injury after a crash, it’s important to fight for fair compensation. The team at Reeves & Mestayer is ready to help you pursue full compensation. Get started now by calling us at 228-300-2754.

Types of Nerve Damage

There are several ways your nerves may be damaged in a car collision. The first is neurapraxia, which occurs when the nerve suffers compression or stretching during a crash. While it may cause some temporary symptoms, neurapraxia generally resolves fairly quickly if you get enough rest. Symptoms can also be treated with ice and heat.

A slightly more severe type of nerve damage is axonotmesis, which happens when the axons and myelin sheath are damaged. However, other parts of the nerve remain intact. This is a more serious injury and may require physical therapy to restore full use of the affected area.

The most serious type of nerve damage is neurotmesis, which happens when the nerve is completely severed. In some cases, prompt surgical care can allow the victim to regain some use of the affected area. However, if treatment is delayed or unsuccessful, the victim may lose functionality forever.

What Type of Compensation You May Receive

It can be difficult to secure fair and full compensation for your nerve damage. Until you have sought treatment and gone through all of your available options, there’s no real way to know whether or not your injuries will fully heal. As a result, fair compensation is difficult to determine.

As you may imagine, insurance companies will err on the side of a full recovery. They’ll claim that your injuries are unlikely to be permanent and that you deserve minimal compensation as a result. However, they are protecting their own best interests, not yours.

Even if you don’t yet know if you’ll make a full recovery, you deserve to be fairly compensated for your injuries. Talking to a car accident attorney should be your next step. Depending on what the evidence says, you may receive compensation for:

  • Medical expenses
  • Future medical costs if your injury will require further medical intervention
  • Lost wages
  • Lost future income if your injury affects your ability to work permanently
  • Pain and suffering
  • Disability and disfigurement

Proving Your Nerve Damage

A big part of a personal injury claim is proving that you have been injured. First, you may want to keep a log of your symptoms and how they progress each day. Common symptoms of nerve damage include:

  • Numbness, especially in your extremities
  • Burning or stabbing pain
  • Muscle weakness and loss of control
  • Random pain that comes without a trigger
  • Sensitivity to touch or changes in temperature
  • Lack of coordination

You should also get as much medical evidence as possible. When you meet with your personal injury attorney, make sure to provide as much documentation as you can. Diagnostic scans, feedback from your doctor, treatments you have tried, your next steps, medications, and other information can help your attorney convince the insurance company that you are owed compensation.

As you pursue compensation and navigate your personal injury claim, make sure you do everything that your doctor recommends. This can be challenging when the doctor prescribes physical therapy and other time-consuming treatments. However, failing to follow your doctor’s treatment can put your injury claim in danger. You have a duty to mitigate the damage of the crash by doing everything you can to ensure a full recovery.

Reach Out to Reeves & Mestayer Now to Discuss Your Case

Working with the right personal injury attorney can help you get treated fairly by the insurance company. Don’t trust the insurance adjuster to offer the settlement you truly deserve—let us guide you through this process. Set up a consultation with our team now. Just call us at 228-300-2754 or contact us online. We’re ready to advocate aggressively for you as you heal from your injuries.

How Fitness Tracker Data May Help Your Auto Accident Case

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You might be surprised by the wide variety of evidence available to you after a car accident. Of course, there are the usual suspects—photos, video footage, and your own recounting of the event. However, there are others that may surprise you. Security video footage from nearby stores, dashcam footage from an uninvolved driver that stops to help, skid marks on the road, and fitness tracker data.

Yes, your fitness watch could be a great source of evidence during your personal injury claim. Want to learn more? Call Reeves & Mestayer at 228-300-2754 to set up a consultation right now.

What Data Does Your Watch Collect?

To start, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the wide range of data your watch gathers. It includes:

  • Location
  • Heart rate
  • Calorie burning and metabolism
  • Sleep quality
  • Exercise duration, intensity, and habits
  • General activity level
  • Temperature and other body measurements

If you use your imagination, you can see how a lot of these would be useful in a car crash claim. Your attorney will be able to examine the data on your watch and determine how to use it.

Your Data May Show Your Injuries or Illness

How will your watch data show an injury caused by a crash? While your watch cannot prove anything on its own, it can be used as supporting evidence. To start, your watch provides a baseline for your activity and health level.

Assuming you wear it daily, it shows your average steps, workout time, workout intensity, and calories burned. Any significant change in any of those metrics will be visible on a chart produced by the app, and on some watches, major changes in trends even warrant a notification.

Imagine this scenario. A marathon runner with a demanding physical job is hurt in a car crash. The insurance company isn’t interested in paying any more than a pitifully low settlement, claiming that the victim is exaggerating their injuries to secure a bigger payout.

The victim’s attorney provides an analysis of the watch data. It shows that in the weeks since the accident, their average step count has dropped from 14,000 per day to less than 6,000. The victim runs about 50% less often than they used to, and when they do, it is at a slower pace for less time. Additionally, the victim’s resting heart rate has increased, indicating an overall decrease in health.

The attorney points out days that have less than 1,000 steps, noting that those days correlate with the days that the victim missed work due to their pain levels. That evidence just made it much harder for the insurance company to ignore the victim’s claim.

Sleep quality and temperature are also useful metrics in an accident claim. Pain and limited mobility can cause a drop in sleep quality, which weakens your immune system and overall quality of life.

If your sleep tracker identifies a major change in your sleep patterns and an overall decrease in sleep quality, that may be useful evidence. If you suffered an infection from the road rash you got in the accident, your tracker may show an overall increase in body temperature for several days or weeks as your body attempts to fight off the infection.

Remember That Your Evidence Can Also Be Used Against You

As is the case with any other piece of evidence, your fitness tracker data can also be used against you. The other side’s insurance company could say that your daily steps have decreased, but that they’re still above the national average, showing that you must not be too badly injured.

They could also claim that you intentionally decreased your activity level in an effort to turn the case in your favor. If there are any metrics that remained normal after the crash, they may latch onto those measurements and try to use them as proof that you aren’t injured. This is why it’s important to work with an attorney. They can weigh the advantages and disadvantages, then help you make the right choice for your case.

Contact Reeves & Mestayer Now—We’re Ready to Work on Your Case

The sooner you begin your personal injury claim, the more time your attorney has to fight for you. We’re ready to talk when you are. Just call us at 228-300-2754 or fill out our contact form.

Pre-Existing Conditions: You’re Still Entitled to Fair Compensation After a Car Crash

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You’ve been injured in a car accident, but you have pre-existing conditions or injuries. Perhaps you’ve heard from the other party’s insurance company or others who have pursued compensation that your prior injury bars you from receiving anything. Insurance companies often deliver this feedback like it’s a fatal blow to your case. They expect you to back down and give up.

It’s not time to give up. It’s time to hire an attorney and fight harder. Call Reeves & Mestayer at 228-300-2754 to set up a consultation and find out what you should do next.

Pre-Existing Conditions Are More Common Than You Think

To start, pre-existing injuries aren’t that uncommon. Insurance companies may act like they’ve discovered something devastating to your claim, but the fact is that most people have been injured at some point before in their lives. Being injured at any point in your life doesn’t mean that you are never entitled to compensation in the future.

Many people have some sort of prior injury, whether from a high school sport, bad luck with genetics, or an unfortunate fall. If insurance companies never paid people with pre-existing injuries, they would almost never have to pay out on claims.

Insurance Companies Will Use Them Against You

Just because pre-existing injuries don’t automatically wreck your claim doesn’t mean that insurance companies won’t do their best to make that happen. Insurance adjusters know that many people do not know their rights after a crash, and they will absolutely use that information to their advantage.

They often deliver this “news” in an apologetic way that makes it seem like they’re on your side— “Oh my goodness, you tore your ACL in high school playing football? That must have been so painful. I’m so sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but since you have a previous knee injury, my company will not allow me to offer any compensation for your shattered kneecap. I wish I could help.” Remember—they are not on your side. Do not take advice from someone who is actively working against your best interests.

Honesty is Key

One mistake you must avoid is hiding your pre-existing injury. Many people do this, thinking that the insurance company won’t know about the injury if they never report it. This isn’t the case.

You’ll inevitably have to disclose that information to your treating physician when you’re seeking treatment for your injury, and the insurance company can get access to that information as you seek compensation. At that point, they will push even harder to get your claim dismissed.

They might say that your choice to hide your pre-existing injury is proof that you are simply trying to make them pay for an injury you suffered years ago. Tell your attorney right away about any previous injuries you have.

You Still Deserve Compensation After a Crash

You having pre-existing injuries doesn’t give other drivers a free pass to drive negligently around you. The fact is that their driving choices aggravated your pre-existing injury. That pain and suffering would not have happened had they driven more safely.

You will likely not be entitled to full compensation for all of the damage suffered in the accident—your treating physician can determine how much damage existed prior to the accident and how much was caused by the accident—but you do still deserve to be compensated for injuries caused by the crash.

If you’re considering bringing this information to the other driver’s insurance provider, save yourself some time and stress. They aren’t interested in hearing it. A personal injury attorney, however, will be ready to fight for you. They’ll analyze your accident and injury information, then devise a plan for getting the compensation you are owed.

Reach Out to Reeves & Mestayer Today

If you have been hurt in a car accident, you deserve a shot at fair and full compensation. The team at Reeves & Mestayer is here to help you as you recover. Schedule a free consultation right now by calling us at 228-300-2754 or contacting our team online. Don’t let an unethical insurance adjuster talk you out of the compensation you are owed.

Reeves and Mestayer Wins $10 Million Verdict in Bad Faith Claim on Behalf of Hurricane Katrina Victim

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The estate of Sylvia Minor of Ocean Springs, MS has been awarded $10 million in punitive damages against USAA Insurance Company for denying their Hurricane Katrina damage claim in bad faith. Attorney Jim Reeves of Reeves and Mestayer served as co-counsel for the plaintiff in this case, and we are very pleased that the jury handed down an 8-figure award to punish the egregious conduct of that USAA displayed.

“This verdict should send a message to insurance companies that in the future when dealing with hurricane losses, the companies must promptly pay the claims that are owed,” Mr. Reeves said in a statement.

Naturally, USAA plans to appeal the verdict, calling the punitive damages that were awarded in this case “excessive”. But the evidence indicated that not only did the insurer wrongfully deny the plaintiff’s damage claims initially, but they also took more than seven years to finally pay certain claims – and they only did so after a lawsuit was filed.

Furthermore, this is far from an isolated incident when it comes to USAA’s bad faith business practices. Although they market themselves as the insurer that is always looking out for our military members and veterans, the records show a disturbing pattern of deceptive and unfair claims practices that date back several years.

This verdict is very timely as it came down just days before Hurricane Ian blasted a large stretch of Southwest Florida. In the aftermath of that storm, insurers like USAA will likely be up to their old tricks.

Hopefully, this verdict will make insurers think twice before they wrongfully deny damage claims filed by homeowners who have already had their lives turned upside down by a devastating hurricane. But if they persist with this type of conduct, firms like Reeves and Mestayer are ready to step in and fight hard to ensure that insurance carriers are held fully accountable for their actions.