Personal injury lawyers commonly are consulted by a potential clientwho has been seriously injured or who has suffered catastrophicinjuries as the result of the breadth of negligent conduct, from anauto accident or bicycle or pedestrian or motorcycle accident tomedical malpractice, a product defect, food poisoning, or a defect orfailure to maintain commercial or residential premises.

 While "liability" in some cases may be simple, such as the autoaccident lawyers establishing through witness testimony that thedefendant driver ran the red light, the presentation of the damage casein every serious injury case is complex. Specific injuries sustained inauto accidents or premises liability cases, such as traumatic braininjury (TBI) or spinal cord injuries resulting in paralysis,quadriplegiaor paraplegia, and the resulting loss of enjoyment of life, can be ascomplex to present by personal injury lawyers as the evidence ofHemolytic Uremic Syndrome HUS in a food poisoning case, or cerebralpalsy in an obstetrical medical malpractice case.

 Furthermore, speaking again just in terms of the client's"general damages," the personal injury lawyers must use appropriatestrategies to convey to the settlement judge or jury the lifeconsequence of the serious injuries. Many personal injury attorneysrefer to "general damages" as "pain and suffering," but often the mostpersuasive strategy can be framed in terms of "loss of enjoyment oflife." One way that lawyers will present their clients general damagesis by eliciting the testimony of the client, his family and friends, aswell as photographs and home movies demonstrating all the activitiesthat the client enjoyed most in his life before the accident,juxtaposed against a "Day in the Life" film, commissioned by thepersonal injury lawyer to demonstrate the courage of the seriouslyinjured client as he confronts all of the obstacles and challengespresented by his daily life.

The personal injury lawyer must also present the client's "specialdamages" including his past and future medical expenses and past andfuture loss of earnings or earning capacity. Past medical expenses areoften easy to prove, simply gathering and summing all medical billsaccumulated from the date of the accident through the date of thesettlement conference or trial. Future medical expenses are much morecomplicated for personal injury attorneys to present, usually requiringthe testimony of a number of medical experts, a life care planner and aforensic economist. Very briefly, the life care planner consults withthe treating and the medical experts hired by the serious injuryattorneys to arrive at the client's life expectancy and itemize all ofthe medical expense, from additional surgeries to convalescent home orrehabilitation expense, to replacement prostheses or wheel chairs tomedical supplies that the client will require over the course of hislife expectancy. The personal injury lawyer will the present the "lifecare plan" to a forensic economist who will increase the individualcosts over the time period using medical cost inflation statistics andthen reduce the total to present value.

In the simplest of cases, involving the hourly wage earner, forexample, the measure of past loss of earnings might be relatively easyto calculate, but the measure of future loss of earning is alwayscomplex. Again it requires the personal injury lawyer to engage anumber of experts, including medical experts, and most importantly a"vocational rehabilitation expert" and forensic economist. The measureof future loss of earnings or earning capacity is the "net" loss, andso the vocational rehabilitation expert generally meets with theclient, speaks with the clients physicians and the medical expertsselected by the serious injury lawyer, reviews the clients transcriptsfrom the schooling or advanced education he has received, and thenprovides a report to the lawyer describing the occupations for whichthe client is, subsequent to the accident, is disqualified toparticipate in, and the occupations for which he remains qualified.Depending on the client's injury, there may also be a substantialdifference between the client's "work life expectancy" before and afterthe accident. The serious injury lawyers then provide the vocationalrehabilitation experts report to the forensic economist, who in turnemploys wage rate increase statistics, for the client's occupationbefore the accident, and in those industries for which he is stillqualified to be employed, if any, and applies general inflationstatistics to the gross total loss of future earnings to discount topresent value.

 Please understand that above our California personal injurylawyers have discussed only the "simplest case" of the hourly wageearner. Presenting future loss earnings, for example, can be much morecomplicated, for example, in cases in which the client was a businessowner. For a more complete discussion of the presentation of damages inserious injury cases, you are invited to consider In that article we go into much more depth in explaining how seriousinjury attorneys present general damages and special damages, includingin particular, future medical expenses and future loss of earnings.

 It is a challenge for personal injury lawyers to properly andadequately present the damage case of the seriously injury client. Itis a challenge that must be accepted by attorneys who regularlyprosecute complex cases, such as medical malpractice, food poisoning orpharmaceutical product liability cases, as well as auto accidentlawyers and premises liability attorneys alike. The special damageissues, which are the commonly the most complex, are the regardlesswhether the underlying liability is a simple auto accident or complexmedical malpractice case. And the damage case requires equal attention,regardless of the underlying liability, by the personal injury lawyerwho undertakes any serious injury case.