Overview

We took on the case of a client who was returning from dropping his son at school when a commercial van pulled in front of his vehicle’s path. He suffered a closed head injury in the resulting collision.

After the accident, he continued running his businesses, managed his various investments, and drove himself around regularly. Over the next two years, however, he developed memory and cognitive issues. His behavior grew increasingly erratic, and he began to become forgetful, eventually becoming unable to work or manage his affairs. He grew more distant from his family and had frequent violent outbursts.

Our client alleged that the collision caused a traumatic brain injury that resulted in the development of traumatically induced fronto-temporal dementia.

The defendants insisted that our client suffered from early onset dementia prior to the collision. Medical records confirmed that he had complained to his primary care provider about memory problems before the accident and had been taking Aricept, a medication prescribed to Alzheimer’s sufferers.

Films confirmed that there were “areas of concern” on his brain that predated the accident. At least one of our client’s treating physicians openly speculated in the records that he might be exaggerating his symptoms. Both parties retained experts who were prepared to support their assertions at trial.

Our team sought out and interviewed each of our client’s treating doctors, many of whom had long since relocated to various locations across the country, and obtained sworn statements. Since the physicians had treated our client only for discrete periods of time, it was difficult for any one of them to provide a complete causation analysis.

Each physician signed sworn statements regarding our client’s symptoms and damages resulting from the head trauma suffered in the accident. The statements tended to rule out pre-existing conditions. Even the physician who had questioned whether our client might be exaggerating his symptoms concluded that his initial impression was incorrect, and that he was convinced of the validity of the symptoms and the causal relationship to the accident.