When it comes to cases in the civil courts, personal injury claims make up a large proportion of them. That should make them fairly easy to adjudicate then, right? Not exactly. As with any other legal claim, personal injury cases can be contentious and, importantly, they can be complicated by the medical needs of claimants. If you’ve recently brought a personal injury claim, these three factors can make it harder for you to get back on your feet.

Depending on when and where you were injured, one challenge you and your lawyer are likely to encounter are gathering data and evidence to prove your claim. If, for example, you were injured in a public place or on private property without surveillance cameras, you may find yourself in what amounts to little more than a he said-she said situation. Wider use of CCTV and other surveillance tech has helped simplify this process, but if you don’t move quickly after your injury, the recordings you need may already be gone.

There are many different types of personal injury claims, ranging from slip-and-fall cases to car accidents to medical malpractice, but one commonality that runs through all of these types of injuries is that they can lead to chronic pain and other health complaints. Simply dealing with your pain and the associated fatigue and isolation can make it harder to handle the logistics of a personal injury case, like communicating with your lawyer providing testimony.

Chronic pain as a result of an injury can also be a hard point to argue when it comes to collecting damages in court. While an experienced personal injury lawyer can construct a strong argument based on doctors reports and other evidence, the fact is that if there isn’t a verifiable injury – something that can be seen on an X-ray or MRI or objectively tested – you can have a harder time building your case.

At the conjunction of evidentiary issues and medical ones lie problems like traumatic brain injury and mental health issues resulting from an accident. Both types of conditions can lead to difficulties with cognition, which can make it harder for you to recall the exact sequence of events that led you to be injured, who was present, and other similar information. This can make you appear to be an unreliable witness, even if you struggle with such processes precisely because you were hurt in an accident. 

Personal injury cases are complex because, even though victims are almost always putting in a lot of work for fairly minimal damages, they ultimately have more to do with being seen as victimized than they do financial recompense. And, while these cases span extremes, from those who will go through the process to hold a business accountable for a sprained ankle to those who nearly died due to negligence, at the end of the day, they all speak to our vulnerability and the role of the courts in ensuring the victims are made whole – because that’s what our courts are for.