The hardest thing about a brain injury claim is that the law asks you to know what your future looks like before anybody can tell you.
California gives you two years to file, and it starts running on the day of the injury. A moderate or severe brain injury is often still changing a year in. Cognitive fatigue, irritability, word-finding trouble and sleep disruption can be worse at month nine than at month two, and the question that decides the value of the case, whether you get back to the work you used to do, is frequently unanswerable inside the first year. Settling before that is known is the single most expensive mistake in this area of law.
Culver Legal has recovered $200 Million and counting for injured people in California. We work on contingency, we advance the costs of the case, and there is no fee unless we win. Call (310) 600-7881 at any hour.
A Normal Scan Does Not Mean a Normal Brain
This is the sentence that keeps people from calling, and it rests on a misunderstanding of what the scan was for.
A CT scan in an emergency department exists to answer one urgent question: is there bleeding or swelling that needs surgical attention tonight. It answers that question well. It is not designed to detect diffuse axonal injury, where rotational force stretches and tears nerve fibers throughout the brain rather than producing a single bleed in one place. Those tears do not show as a mass on an emergency CT, and the person is discharged with a clear scan and a leaflet.
That is why so many people with genuine, lasting brain injuries are told at the hospital that everything looks fine, and then find months later that they cannot hold a conversation in a noisy room or work a full day without collapsing. The scan was accurate about what it measured. It was never measuring this.
What it means for a claim. A defense built on “the CT was clear” is answered with the right imaging and the right specialists, and with a record of how somebody actually functions over time rather than a single snapshot taken on the worst night of their life.
Told your scan was clear, but you have not felt right since?
Emergency imaging is not looking for the injury behind most persistent symptoms. That is worth one phone call.
The Symptoms That Decide the Case Are the Ones Nobody Photographs
A broken femur is visible, dated and undeniable. A brain injury is none of those, and the record has to be built deliberately.
The symptoms that carry the most weight are the ones people are least likely to report: losing the thread mid-sentence, rereading the same paragraph, sleeping badly and waking unrefreshed, becoming short-tempered with people you were never short-tempered with, and being unable to tolerate noise or screens. Most people describe these as being tired or stressed rather than as symptoms, and so they never reach a medical note.
Keep a short daily record. A few lines a day on headaches, sleep, memory and mood, written at the time. Contemporaneous notes are worth considerably more than a recollection given eighteen months later, and they are the only way to show a trajectory rather than a single bad day.
Say what changed, to the people treating you. A family member’s account of what is different about you is evidence in a way your own account cannot be, because you are the least well placed person to notice a change in your own attention.
What an Insurer Will Argue, and What Answers It
The arguments are predictable enough to prepare for.
That the scan was clear. Answered above, and it is the weakest of them once the imaging question is properly put.
That you had something wrong before. A previous concussion, a migraine history, a period of depression or anxiety, an earlier accident. California law does not let a defendant benefit from the fact that the person they injured was already vulnerable. Someone who was managing a condition before and cannot manage it now has been made worse, and being made worse is the injury.
That you did not seek treatment quickly enough. Frequently true and frequently explained by the injury itself, since a person with impaired attention and judgment is the least likely to organize their own follow-up care. A gap in treatment is a fact to explain, not an admission.
That the symptoms are subjective. They are, and so is pain, which juries have been valuing for a very long time. Neuropsychological testing, work records, and the accounts of people who knew you before turn a subjective complaint into an evidenced one.
Where a Brain Injury Comes From
A brain injury is almost never a standalone case. It sits inside another claim and the underlying facts decide who pays.
Most arrive from vehicle collisions, where the rules on fault and insurance run exactly as they do in any other car accident claim. A truck collision brings a far higher federal insurance floor and a set of federally regulated records. Somebody struck while walking or cycling has nothing between them and the vehicle, which is why head injuries are so common in those cases. A fall on someone else’s property is a premises liability claim, and the most severe outcomes fall under catastrophic injury. Where a head injury proves fatal, the family is bringing a wrongful death claim.
Severity Is Not the Same as Diagnosis, and the Label Matters Less Than You Think
People arrive convinced that the word on their discharge paperwork settles what their case is worth. It does not.
“Mild” is a clinical grading, not a description of your life. A mild traumatic brain injury is graded on what happened in the first minutes: whether consciousness was lost, for how long, and how somebody scored on a scale at the roadside. It says almost nothing about whether a person is still unable to work two years later. A substantial share of people graded mild recover completely, and a minority do not, and nothing in the initial grading reliably tells you which group somebody is in.
“Concussion” and “mild traumatic brain injury” describe the same thing. The first word sounds like something a footballer shakes off by Saturday. The second sounds serious. Insurers use the first, and it does real work in a negotiation for a term that carries no medical distinction.
What actually determines value is function. Can you do the job you did before, for as long as you did it, to the standard you did it. Can you manage your own household, finances and relationships as you did. Those questions are answered by neuropsychological testing, employment records and the people around you, not by the word chosen on a discharge summary in an emergency department at 2am.
They Are Saying It Was Partly My Fault. Does That End It?
No. California is a pure comparative fault state, settled in Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804. A share of responsibility reduces recovery in proportion to that share and does not bar the claim, and there is no cut-off percentage past which the right disappears.
An adjuster who tells you that you were “also at fault” has made a statement about the size of a claim, not about whether one exists.
What a Brain Injury Claim Can Cover
This is where brain injury claims differ most from other injury claims, because the largest numbers are usually in the future rather than in the bills already received.
Medical treatment already received, and the care still ahead: neurology, neuropsychology, cognitive rehabilitation, speech and occupational therapy. Wages lost while you could not work. Reduced earning capacity, which in a serious brain injury is frequently the largest single element, because the question is not what you earned last year but what you can now realistically earn for the rest of your working life. The cost of support at home where somebody needs help managing daily tasks. Pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of life.
Where an injury is permanent, the claim has to be built on the lifetime cost rather than this year’s cost. That is the work that cannot be done in the first few months, and it is the reason an early offer in a brain injury case is almost always wrong.
What Is a Brain Injury Claim Worth?
There is no formula, and here an average is even less meaningful than usual, because the range between a concussion that resolves and a diffuse axonal injury requiring lifelong support is enormous.
The largest elements are usually reduced earning capacity and future care, not the bills already received. That is why the answer genuinely does not exist in the first few months, and why an early offer is priced on the assumption that you recover.
How is pain and suffering calculated in California? There is no multiplier and no table in California law, and no cap in an ordinary injury claim. It is argued from evidence, and in a brain injury that evidence is neuropsychological testing, employment records and the accounts of people who knew you before, rather than an imaging result. Anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress arising from the injury are compensable on the same footing where documented by somebody treating you.
How Long Does a Brain Injury Claim Take?
Longer than most injury claims, and the reason is the point of this page: the extent of a brain injury is frequently not settled a year after the accident.
A claim resolved quickly is a claim valued before anybody knew whether you would return to your old work. Where the injury is permanent, the case needs the medical picture to stabilize, and usually needs a life care plan and an economist, before it can be valued at all.
Starting early and settling early are opposite things. The evidence, the treatment record and the symptom diary all need to begin immediately. The valuation does not.
What Does It Cost to Hire a Lawyer, and What Comes Out of a Settlement?
Nothing up front. California personal injury work is done on contingency, so the fee is a percentage of the recovery and there is no fee at all if there is no recovery.
The percentage is set out in a written fee agreement before any work begins, and California requires contingency fee agreements to be in writing and given to the client. That document governs, not a figure quoted on a website.
What comes out of a recovery, in order: the attorney’s fee under that agreement, then the case costs the firm advanced to build the claim, such as records, filing fees and expert reports, then any medical liens where a provider or health plan has a right to be repaid. What remains goes to you.
That is why a headline settlement figure and the amount somebody actually receives are different numbers. Ask for that breakdown at the first meeting.
How Long Do I Have to File?
Two years from the date of injury, under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1.
Six months to present a written claim to a public entity, under Government Code 911.2, where a government vehicle, a road defect or a public property hazard was involved.
Injured children. Code of Civil Procedure 352 pauses the ordinary limitation period while an injured person is under 18. The six-month government claim rule is not paused in the same way. This matters more in brain injury than anywhere else, because a developing brain’s injury may not be apparent until school demands change years later.
The tension worth naming. Two years is generous for a broken bone and tight for a brain injury, because the extent of the harm is often not settled inside it. That is an argument for starting early rather than for settling early, and those are opposite things.
Been offered a settlement already?
An offer made before anyone knows whether you get back to your old work is priced on the assumption that you will.
Where We Handle Brain Injury Cases
We take brain injury cases across California. Where an injury happened in a market we have a page for, it is worth reading alongside this one: Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Fresno, San Diego, Gardena and Long Beach.
Why Clients Choose Culver Legal
We come to you. If you are in the hospital, at home, or finding travel and unfamiliar places harder than you used to, we will meet you where you are. Somebody with a brain injury should not have to navigate a strange building to start a claim.
Our team speaks Spanish, Farsi, Filipino, Hindi, Mandarin and Korean. Explaining your own accident in your own words is not a convenience, and it matters more when finding words is part of what was injured.
The economics are simple. The firm works on contingency and advances the costs of the case, so there is nothing to pay up front and no fee unless we win, and somebody answers the phone 24 hours a day.
Brain Injury FAQs
My CT scan was normal. Do I still have a claim?
Yes. An emergency CT is looking for bleeding that needs surgery that night, and it is good at that. It is not designed to detect diffuse axonal injury or the changes behind most persistent symptoms. A clear scan answers the emergency question, not the injury question.
I did not lose consciousness. Can I still have a brain injury?
Yes. Loss of consciousness is neither necessary nor a good measure of severity. Plenty of people with lasting symptoms never lost consciousness at all, and plenty who briefly did recover fully.
Symptoms did not start for weeks. Is it too late to connect them to the accident?
No, and delayed onset is common. It does make the record more important, which is why a daily note on symptoms and an early conversation with your doctor about what has changed are worth so much.
I had a concussion years ago. Will that be used against me?
It will be raised. It should not defeat the claim. A defendant does not get the benefit of having injured somebody who was already vulnerable, and a person who was coping before and is not coping now has been made worse.
I am undocumented. Can I bring a claim safely?
Yes. Under Evidence Code 351.2, added by AB 2159, evidence of immigration status is not admissible in a civil action for personal injury or wrongful death, and discovery into it is not permitted either.
What does it cost to have you look at it?
Nothing. The firm works on contingency and advances the costs of the case, so there is no fee unless we win.
What tests actually show a brain injury if the CT was clear?
Usually neuropsychological testing, which measures attention, memory, processing speed and executive function against what somebody of your age and background would be expected to do. More detailed imaging is sometimes used. The testing is frequently more persuasive than any scan because it measures function rather than structure.
Do I need to see my own specialists, or is the emergency record enough?
The emergency record answers the emergency question and almost never answers the injury question. Following up with the right specialists is both the correct medical course and the way the claim gets evidenced.
My symptoms started weeks after the accident. Is it too late to link them?
No. Delayed onset is common and well recognized. It makes the record more important, which is why dated notes and an early conversation with your doctor about what has changed are worth so much.
I already had depression or anxiety before the accident. Does that ruin the claim?
No. It will be raised. A defendant does not get the benefit of having injured somebody who was already vulnerable, and a person who was coping before and is not coping now has been made worse.
Contact a Culver Legal Brain Injury Lawyer
The two questions that decide a brain injury claim are what the imaging was actually looking for and what your life looks like in three years. Neither is answered by an adjuster in the first month, and both are answerable with the right record built early. If you or someone in your family has a head injury after an accident anywhere in California, reach us at (310) 600-7881, at any hour. The review costs nothing.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Culver Legal, LLP is a California law firm. The information on this page is for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.
