A Basch & Keegan client who had suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury, accepted a settlement offer of $300,000. Our client was a passenger of a car driven by her husband. Their car was t-boned in an intersection, and it was determined that her husband caused the collision. How then did she recover a six-figure settlement? She filed a “Spousal Liability Claim” with the car insurance company.
This might seem counterintuitive. Can one spouse assert an insurance claim against the other? The answer is yes. Supplemental Spousal Liability coverage is an important safety net that many insurance agencies don’t advertise. Spouses, by nature, spend a lot of time together in the car. Mistakes can happen, and this type of coverage recognizes this fact. If your spouse causes an accident while you are a passenger and you sustain serious injury or death, you can file a claim against your spouse for compensation.
John A. DeGasperis handled this case on behalf of his client, a nurse, who sustained a head injury in the crash. She had a traumatic brain injury, concussion, and post-concussion syndrome in addition to spine, back and shoulder damage.
Traumatic brain injury cases are difficult cases. They are harder to settle or bring to trial because the testing for brain injuries is not efficiently detailed to capture microscope trauma. These are not the type of cases that allow attorneys to learn as they go. John DeGasperis, partner at Basch & Keegan, has significant experience handling brain injury cases.
“I see TBI cases differently,” explains John. “They are hard cases. Every personal injury lawyer wants the case with a broken bone over a TBI because broken bones show up on x-rays. Closed head injuries do not show up on tests. The lawyer must prove an invisible injury.”
John understands this struggle more than the average personal injury attorney. John’s late father suffered from a brain injury after multiple strokes. He witnessed firsthand the struggle of a brain injury. He knows how family will often be the victim’s advocate and be the ones who articulate the injury.
John was the right attorney for this case. He hired a neurological expert to evaluate his client. The neurologist found that she showed: “clinically significant deficits in her attention and concentration, memory, processing speed, visual-spatial skills, verbal skills and visual scanning, as well as severe levels of anxiety and depression.”
The neurologist also concluded that our client was totally disabled. The report from the neurologist forced the insurance company to settle for $300,000.