Newport Beach Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer

Trusted Spinal Cord Injury Attorney in Newport Beach, CA

Spinal cord injuries can be devastating, disrupting lives and livelihoods and costing families exorbitant amounts of money. If you’ve sustained a spinal cord injury during an accident that was someone else’s fault, you may be able to seek compensation for medical bills, ongoing care, and other damages with the help of a Newport Beach spinal cord injury lawyer.

Trust the Team at Easton & Easton

The team here at Easton & Easton is committed to protecting professionals and their families when severe injuries disrupt their lives, careers, and financial stability. We have extensive experience in handling high-value personal injury cases, including spinal cord injury cases.

We know what it takes to negotiate a full settlement and are fully prepared to take your case to court if the insurance company refuses to make a fair offer. You can trust us with your spinal cord injury claim.

Why Hire a Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer?

Between 250,000 and 390,000 Americans live with the effects of spinal cord injuries. Each year, approximately 18,000 new cases occur. If you’re one of the many people affected by this problem, you can hire a spinal cord injury lawyer to help you hold the person or party who caused your injury liable.

Your dedicated personal injury lawyer can assist you with all aspects of your case, from gathering evidence and proving liability to negotiating a settlement or taking your case to court. Entrusting your case to a dedicated attorney can allow you to focus on healing from your injuries and finding new ways to move forward with your life.

What Is a Spinal Cord Injury?

Spinal cord injuries occur when people sustain damage to their spinal columns, sometimes referred to colloquially as the backbone, or to the tissue or nerves within them. The spinal column is responsible for carrying messages to and from the brain, so any injury to this part of the body can have debilitating effects. You may suffer:

• Temporary or permanent disability
• Loss of sensation
• Loss of motor control
• Loss of body function
• Paralysis

Severe spinal cord injuries can have lifelong consequences, and complications are common. For instance, a collision involving commercial vehicles may require immediate intervention from an experienced Newport Beach truck accident lawyer to preserve key vehicle telemetry before it is lost.  Rehospitalizations occur in around 55% of patients in the first year after their injuries and continue at a rate of around 37% per year for the next 20 years.

Classification of Spinal Cord Injuries

Spinal cord injuries are usually classified by doctors at local hospitals like Hoag Hospital Newport Beach by their location and severity. You may hear your doctors talking about the:

• Level of injury. The area of the spine affected by your spinal cord injury determines what parts of the body could be affected. The cervical spine runs from C1 to C7 in the neck, and this is the highest level of injury. Injuries to the cervical spine can lead to quadriplegia. Injuries lower down in the spinal column to the thoracic, lumbar, or sacral regions can result in paraplegia.
• Severity of the injury. Doctors refer to complete and incomplete spinal cord injuries. Complete injuries lead to a total loss of sensory and motor function in the areas below the injury site. Incomplete injuries involve the maintenance of some sensation or movement and have a greater chance of leading to full or partial recovery.

No matter what parts of your body are affected by your spinal cord injury and how substantially, your ability to work and care for your family could be significantly impacted. Permanent disability is common in spinal cord injury cases. You deserve access to the money you need to pay medical bills and maintain your lifestyle moving forward.

Common Causes of Spinal Cord Injuries

According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center (NSCISC), the most common causes of spinal cord injuries include:

• Motor vehicle collisions. Car crashes cause 36.88% of spinal cord injuries.
• Falls. Falls account for 33.07% of spinal cord injuries.
• Acts of violence. Gunshot wounds, assaults, and other acts of violence account for 14.87% of spinal cord injuries.
• Sports and recreation. Sports and recreational activities account for 7.46% of spinal cord injuries.

Other causes of these serious injuries include medical or surgical complications, being hit by falling or flying objects, machinery accidents, animal attacks, and more. When collisions involve severe high-speed impacts along arterial freeways, working with an experienced Newport Beach SR-55 freeway accident lawyer ensures proper investigation of complex highway liability. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how you were injured. If someone else’s negligence contributed to the accident, you may have cause to file a spinal cord injury claim.

Types of Spinal Cord Injury Cases

There are three primary types of spinal cord injury cases, each of which requires proving a different set of elements. Your lawyer can help you identify how to move forward with your case. Depending on the specifics, it may include:

• Making a claim of negligence. The majority of spinal cord injury claims are based on the theory of negligence. In these cases, the person who caused the accident failed to exercise reasonable care, leading to your injuries. Car accidents are a good example, as they are usually caused by driver error. Slip-and-falls on company property are another common source of negligence claims related to spinal cord injuries.
• Proving that a defective product caused your injuries. Defective or dangerous products, such as faulty seatbelts or airbags in a car, can play a role in causing spinal cord injuries. When that’s the case, you may need to file a product liability claim against the company that designed, manufactured, or sold the product.
• Showing an intentional action led to your injuries. In some cases, spinal cord injuries occur during assaults or due to other intentional actions. You may be able to file an intentional tort claim against the attacker. Depending on the circumstances, you may also be able to file a negligence claim against the owner of the property where the attack took place.

Proving Negligence Claims

Because most spinal cord injuries occur during car accidents or falls, negligence claims are very common. To prove negligence, you’ll need to show:

• Duty. The defendant must have had an implicit or explicit duty to act with reasonable care. Drivers must follow traffic laws, for example, and store owners must keep their floors free from spills.
• Breach. The defendant must have failed to meet their obligation to you as the plaintiff. This might happen if a driver ran a red light or a store owner didn’t warn visitors about a wet floor.
• Causation. Your spinal cord injury must have been directly caused by the defendant’s breach of duty.
• Damages. You must have suffered compensable harm as a result of your injury.

An attorney can help you gather the evidence required to prove these four elements of negligence. That evidence could include:

• Medical records
• Hospital bills
• Receipts for out-of-pocket expenses
• Photos of the accident scene
• Surveillance videos
• Police reports
• Witness accounts
• Pay stubs to show lost wages

It’s often the case that expert witnesses are required to testify to the extent of your injuries and the projected cost of caring for them over the course of your lifetime. Your lawyer can arrange for expert witnesses to testify on your behalf.

FAQs

Q: What Is Considered a Severe Spinal Cord Injury?

A: A complete injury causing a total loss of motor and sensory function below the site of the damage is considered a severe spinal cord injury. These injuries permanently crush or sever the neural pathways that transmit signals to and from the brain. If they happen lower down in the spinal cord, they can cause paraplegia. If they happen higher up, they can cause quadriplegia and/or autonomic dysfunction.

Q: Do Injections Increase Your Spinal Cord Injury Settlement?

A: Injections can increase your spinal cord injury settlement because they serve as concrete evidence that your injury is severe enough to require invasive medical care. Claims that involve spinal cord injections generally lead to higher insurance payouts than those relying exclusively on more conservative treatments like physical therapy. You can ask your Newport Beach spinal cord injury attorney for more information about how much your specific case may be worth.

Q: What Is the Life Expectancy After a Spinal Cord Injury?

A: The life expectancy after a spinal cord injury depends on the accident victim’s age at injury and the level of neurological impairment. While the overall life expectancy for people with spinal cord injuries is slightly lower than that of the general population, most people who survive the first year after their injuries live normal lifespans.

Q: Should I Accept the First Settlement Offer for a Spinal Cord Injury?

A: You should not accept the first settlement offer for a spinal cord injury without speaking to a lawyer first. Spinal cord injuries are typically very expensive to manage, as they can require lifelong care. Insurance companies rarely make initial offers that cover 100% of an accident victim’s damages, so accepting the first offer could leave you without the money you need to pay for ongoing care.

Your Newport Beach Spinal Cord Accident Lawyer

If you’ve sustained a spinal cord injury, you should not try to navigate the legal process of recovering compensation alone. Instead, work with a Newport Beach spinal cord accident lawyer.

Easton & Easton is a high-settlement firm that focuses on complex cases. We have a proven process for making sure our clients get fair compensation, and as a result, one in three of our settlements is for $100,000 or more. Find out why doctors and lawyers recommend our firm. Contact us to schedule an initial consultation today.

Newport Beach, CA Related Spinal Cord Injury Resources

• Average Spinal Cord Injury Settlement in California

Newport Beach, CA Spinal Cord Injury Legal Resources

• Orange County Superior Court – Harbor Justice Center Filings & Civil Division
• National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center (NSCISC) – Data & Statistics
• California Civil Code – Negligence & Strict Products Liability (Cal. Civ. Code § 1714)
• Newport Beach Police Department – Traffic Collision Records

About Newport Beach, CA

Newport Beach is world-famous for coastal destinations like Balboa Pier, offering pristine views along the Pacific. However, severe accidents on major arterial roadways like Pacific Coast Highway contribute to spinal cord trauma, with over 18,000 new spinal cord injury cases occurring nationwide annually. In response, local traffic divisions and emergency responders at Hoag Hospital Newport Beach continue strengthening trauma response protocols and regional road safety initiatives. Newport Beach remains a thriving, resilient coastal community committed to protecting the safety of residents and visitors alike.