Many people recover from whiplash within weeks or months, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. How long it takes to heal from whiplash will depend on numerous factors, including:
- Preexisting conditions (e.g., chronic neck pain)
- Your age and overall health
- How serious your whiplash is
- Whether or not you suffered other neck injuries in addition to whiplash
- Whether or not you sought prompt medical attention following the accident
- We Fight for Whiplash Victims Like You
- Damages Can Help You Recover From Whiplash
- Proving a Whiplash Injury Claim
- We Can Handle Your Whiplash Injury Claim
We Fight for Whiplash Victims Like You
As stated in New York Civil Practice Laws & Rules § 214, accident victims are entitled to seek damages only for a limited time. If you wait too long, your legal right to compensation expires, and important evidence you may need to recover damages might lose value.
To protect your right to seek compensation, it is a good idea to get in touch with us as soon as possible. Our team will:
- Keep you updated: Any time there is a major development in your case, we will let you know about it right away and talk it through with you.
- Identify the liable party: If you are unsure of who owes you damages after an accident or how many people contributed to the accident, we will investigate and find out.
- Manage all communications: We will speak with the liable party and their representatives on your behalf, saving you the stress of having to talk or negotiate with them.
- Collect evidence:Accident reports, medical records, expert testimony, eyewitness statements, and other forms of evidence are often critical to getting clients appropriate compensation.
- Assign a value to your case:We will use collected evidence and legal precedents to determine how much money you are entitled to recover.
- Negotiate on your behalf: We will handle the back-and-forth negotiation process and advise you on each offer you receive.
- Represent you in court: If your case does not resolve with a monetary settlement, we will prepare it for the trial process.
Other Perks for Choosing Our Firm
In addition to performing these legal tasks, we will do everything possible to make the legal process more accessible. This includes:
- Traveling to see you:If you are unable to come to our office for any reason, we are happy to travel to any place on Long Island or within the New York metropolitan area.
- Being available to answer questions: We always encourage clients to ask as many questions about as many legal topics as they need.
- Offering a professional perspective: Being so close to the accident, you might have difficulty making objective decisions about your case. We would be happy to advise you about your options whenever you feel you need help.
- Representing you on a contingency-fee-basis: We will cover all the upfront and out-of-pocket expenses required to prepare and file your potential lawsuit. This type of fee agreement also means you do not have to wait to seek damages or risk having the statute of limitations expire.
For a free legal consultation, call 516-932-0400
Damages Can Help You Recover From Whiplash
Whiplash, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, often causes symptoms such as:
- Pain or stiffness in the neck, shoulders, or lower back
- Vertigo and other vision problems
- Sleep problems
- Pain or numbness in an arm or hand
While most whiplash cases are treatable, these symptoms have the potential to wreak havoc on your career, finances, and personal life. You could qualify for any or all of the following types of damages, depending on how your whiplash injury has affected you:
- Pain and suffering: Your physical and/or mental health has declined since the accident.
- Impaired quality of life: Due to the injury and its effects, you have more difficulty living and enjoying your life as you did before.
- Loss of consortium: Your relationship with your spouse has suffered because of your injuries.
- Disability: You lost the use of any body part, either temporarily or permanently. In whiplash cases, this could mean you can no longer move your neck or shoulder freely.
- Loss of wages: You could not go to work until your injury healed, costing you and your family your usual income.
- Loss of employment opportunities:Retaining gainful employment is much harder or impossible for you because of your injuries.
- Medical costs: The injuries required treatment from any type of medical professional, including surgeons, psychiatrists, or physical therapists.
- Other expenses: For example, if the injury prevents you from doing housework and you had to hire a housekeeper, you could be reimbursed for that expense.
Diagnosing Your Whiplash Injury
A comprehensive diagnosis is critical to your healing process and your personal injury case. Your medical records and test results will prove your injury and establish your medical expenses. For example, diagnosing whiplash may involve
- A complete medical history
- A thorough physical exam
- An X-ray that allows your medical team to view any damage to your internal tissues, bones, and organs
- An MRI that provides a detailed view of your organs and soft tissue structures
- A CT scan that shows detailed images of your bones, muscles, fat, and organs
Each of these provides increasingly greater detail that can help diagnose soft tissue injuries like whiplash. However, the more of these you require, the greater your medical damages will be. Reviewing your medical records will allow us to outline all of your recoverable medical expenses so you aren’t left with the bill for your treatment.
Causes of Whiplash That Can Warrant Damages
Car accidents—more specifically, rear-end collisions—are the most common causes of whiplash. When another party’s negligence causes a collision that injures you or a loved one, they can be responsible for your compensation.
Your personal injury lawyer will identify and collect evidence to prove the cause of your whiplash. We’ll also outline the symptoms you experience that you could recover damages for, such as:
- Memory loss
- Inability to focus
- Ongoing insomnia
- Moodiness
- Nervousness
- Depression
Living with the long-term repercussions of a whiplash injury can be painful and costly, which is why our team will take the time to understand your prognosis. A written prognosis from your doctor will outline your expected recovery timeline and the treatments you will need to reach maximum medical improvement. By extension, it also helps your lawyer estimate your future care costs before seeking compensation.
Proving a Whiplash Injury Claim
You already know how whiplash and other injuries have affected your life. How can you prove these effects to an insurance company and demonstrate your need for damages? We will use any or all of the following sources to help corroborate your story:
- Accident reports
- Medical records or reports
- Testimony from witnesses
- Testimony from experts (e.g., economists or vocational rehab specialists)
- Video recordings of the accident or its aftermath
- Any photos you or others took of the scene
Whether your whiplash injury was the result of a car accident or another type of personal injury accident, our team will do everything possible to fight for your compensation.
Understanding the Settlement Negotiation Process
After the accident that caused your whiplash, you could file a claim with the liable party’s insurer. From there, an insurance adjuster may make a settlement offer, but you don’t have to accept it. If the offer you receive doesn’t address your damages, it’s possible to make a counter-offer and enter negotiations.
Rather than handling this yourself, our lawyers can make each step in the process easier to understand and navigate by:
- Determining the value of your injuries
- Preparing and sending a demand letter
- Fielding each round of negotiations
- Helping you make a final decision
He will also ensure the insurance company acts in good faith and responds to your case in a timely fashion. While your lawyer deals with the insurance company, you can focus on your physical recovery or on helping a family member recover.
Click to contact our personal injury lawyers today
We Can Handle Your Whiplash Injury Claim
Our team at Friedman & Simon, L.L.P., knows that it sometimes takes a long while to heal from whiplash. Give yourself the chance to focus on your recovery by allowing our firm to handle your claim on your behalf. Our staff is able to work with clients in several languages, including Spanish, Greek, Bengali, Tamil, and Kannada.
Call or text 516-932-0400 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form