Can a Denver Attorney Take My Traumatic Brain Injury Case to Trial?

Yes. Any Colorado licensed attorney can take a brain injury case to trial. The real question is whether they should, and whether they have done it before. A traumatic brain injury trial is a science case. The jury cannot see the injury. The defense will bring a doctor who says the scans were normal, the symptoms are exaggerated, and the client was fine a month later. Winning means proving, with experts and evidence, that a real injury happened and is still there.

Here is what that takes.

Why TBI cases are different at trial

A broken leg is on the X ray. A brain injury usually is not. Most mild and moderate TBIs produce a normal CT scan, and a standard MRI misses a large share of them too. The defense knows this and builds its whole case on it: no visible damage, no injury.

So the burden falls on the plaintiff's side to teach the jury how brain injuries actually work. That the brain can be injured without ever hitting your head and without losing consciousness. That the injury shows up in memory, attention, processing speed, mood, sleep, and balance, not in a bone. And that the tools to measure those things exist and are reliable.

The experts who prove the injury

A TBI trial is won by a team. The attorney's job is to assemble it, prepare it, and present it in an order a jury can follow.

Neurologists diagnose and treat the injury clinically. They establish the medical fact of a brain injury and connect it to the crash.

Neuropsychologists run the standardized testing that measures cognitive function: memory, attention, executive function, processing speed. Their testing produces numbers, and numbers are what move a jury past "he seems fine to me." They also test for effort and consistency, which is how you answer a defense claim of exaggeration before it is made.

Neuroradiologists read advanced imaging. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI), and volumetric MRI can show damage to white matter tracts and microbleeds that a standard scan does not. A neuroradiologist explains what the scan shows and, just as important, why a normal CT does not mean an uninjured brain.

Physiatrists and rehabilitation physicians speak to the course of recovery, what treatment is still needed, and what the client will and will not get back.

Life care planners, vocational experts, and economists translate all of that into money. Future care, lost earning capacity, present value. Without them the jury has a diagnosis and no number.

The client's own people testify too. A spouse, a coworker, a riding partner. Someone who knew the client before the crash and can describe the difference. Jurors trust that testimony in a way they do not always trust an expert.

The science of the scan

A normal CT rules out bleeding that needs surgery. It does not rule out a brain injury. Standard MRI is better but still misses diffuse axonal injury, the shearing of nerve fibers that happens when the brain moves inside the skull during a sudden stop.

DTI measures the movement of water along white matter tracts. Injured tracts show abnormal values. SWI detects tiny hemorrhages that standard sequences miss. Volumetric analysis compares the size of brain structures to age matched norms and can show atrophy months after a crash.

These tools can be presented to a Colorado jury through a qualified expert, and they are routinely challenged by the defense. Part of trial preparation is anticipating that challenge and having the literature and the expert ready for it.

More on this: Not All MRIs Are the Same, A Negative CT or MRI May Not Rule Out a Traumatic Brain Injury, and Is Radiology Imaging Needed to Diagnose a TBI?.

The defense playbook

Every TBI defense runs the same plays. The scans were normal. The client did not lose consciousness. The ER discharged them the same day. They went back to work. Their symptoms are from stress, or age, or a preexisting condition. The neuropsych testing shows poor effort.

An attorney who has tried these cases knows each play is coming and builds the answer into the case before trial: the imaging expert who explains the normal CT, the treating provider who documented symptoms from week one, the employer who describes the accommodations that made "going back to work" possible, the effort testing that was passed.

What the process looks like

Most brain injury cases settle. The ones that do not usually go to trial because the insurer refuses to value the injury. The path from filing to verdict in Colorado district court commonly runs a year or more. Along the way: written discovery, depositions of the client, the experts, and the defense experts, independent medical examinations requested by the defense, mediation, and pretrial motions over what evidence and which experts the jury will hear.

The client's job during that period is to keep treating, keep the symptom journal, and stay off social media. The attorney's job is everything else.

Questions to ask any attorney before you hire them for a TBI case

Have you tried a brain injury case to verdict? Do you handle trial yourself or refer it to another firm? Which types of experts do you use, and who pays for them? What happens to my case if the insurer never makes a fair offer? An attorney who has done this answers with specifics. One who has not talks about "aggressive representation." Here is how to find a trusted TBI lawyer.

How this plays out at Bike Brain Law

Dan D'Angelo handles every case personally, from the first call through verdict. There is no handoff to a case manager and no referral to a trial firm when the case does not settle. The practice is built around brain injuries because they are the injury the defense is best at denying, and the one that needs a lawyer who knows the science.

If you have a brain injury from a bike crash or any other cause and you want to know whether your case can be tried, call 303.831.1116 for a free consultation. No fee unless we win.

Have a question about your case?

Attorney Dan D'Angelo offers free consultations for brain injury and cycling accident victims throughout Colorado.

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