Few workplace injuries are as serious as traumatic brain injuries. The effects can be permanent, and the treatment costs are often enormous. Injured employees are often eligible for substantial workers’ comp benefits as a result, but the costs involved in paying out these claims are why insurers tend to fight them particularly hard.
If you suffered a TBI on the job in Ohio, you need an attorney with the knowledge and the track record to meet and overcome that kind of resistance.
Philip J. Fulton Law Office of Columbus has spent over 40 years fighting for Ohio workers with serious on-the-job injuries, and our lawyers don’t back down from difficult cases. Our law firm focuses exclusively on workers’ comp and disability law, and our founding attorney literally wrote the book on workers’ comp in Ohio. We never represent employers or insurers, charge no fees unless we recover benefits, and are committed to representing clients when they need help most.
Let us put this skill, insight, and compassion to work for you. Contact us today for a free initial consultation with a workers’ comp lawyer for traumatic brain injury claims.
A traumatic brain injury, or TBI, occurs when a sudden blow, jolt, or penetrating impact disrupts normal brain function. TBIs range from mild concussions to severe injuries that cause permanent cognitive and physical impairment. What makes these injuries particularly dangerous is that the full extent of the damage isn’t always immediately apparent. Symptoms can take hours, days, or even weeks to fully emerge, and workers sometimes dismiss early warning signs as minor soreness, headache, or fatigue.
The consequences of a serious TBI can affect every aspect of a person’s life. Physical symptoms can include persistent headaches, dizziness, seizures, and loss of coordination. Cognitive effects can range from memory loss and difficulty concentrating to severely impaired judgment. Many TBI survivors also experience significant emotional and behavioral disruptions, including depression, anxiety, and personality changes that affect their relationships and their ability to maintain employment.
Workers in different industries face different on-the-job TBI risks, which means the causes of these injuries vary widely. Some result from dramatic accidents, while others stem from a single misstep or hazard that nobody saw coming until it was too late. The most common work-related TBI causes in Ohio include:
A work-related TBI can affect every aspect of your life, from your ability to work to your capacity to carry out basic daily tasks. Ohio’s workers’ compensation system has several types of benefits available to help TBI victims manage these effects. Depending on the severity of the injury and its impact on your ability to earn a living, you could be entitled to:
Insurers dispute TBI claims more aggressively than many other types of workers’ comp cases for two main reasons: the injuries are often invisible, and the potential payouts are large. Unlike, say, broken bones, TBIs don’t always show up clearly on standard imaging. This means insurers have more room to question the severity of the injury or whether it occurred at work. At the same time, a successful claim involving a severe TBI can result in permanent total disability benefits that insurers may have to pay out for the rest of the claimant’s life. As such, insurers have a strong incentive to fight back from day one.
In this context, fighting back might look like requesting unnecessary examinations to generate medical opinions that minimize or contradict the worker’s treating physician. It might also involve hunting for things like reporting delays or documentation errors and using them as excuses to delay, reduce, or deny payouts. An experienced attorney can anticipate these tactics, counter them effectively, and make sure your claim reflects the true impact your TBI has had on your life.
A work-related head injury can have consequences that aren’t immediately obvious, and the steps you take afterward can significantly affect both your health and your workers’ comp claim. If you or someone close to you suffers a head injury on the job, here’s what you should do to protect both:
TBI claims are extremely complex and often subject to vigorous disputes. The injuries themselves are often invisible to the naked eye, and symptoms can take days or weeks to fully surface. Payouts for successful claims can also be substantial, so insurers have every incentive to challenge them. Without an attorney who knows how to build and defend these cases, even a legitimate TBI claim can fall apart.
Philip J. Fulton Law Office has spent over 40 years representing Ohio workers with serious, life-altering injuries, and our lawyers know what it takes to win the cases insurers fight hardest. Our founder literally wrote the book that Ohio courts, the BWC, and other attorneys across the state turn to for authoritative guidance on Ohio’s workers’ comp system. That depth of knowledge is significant when the difference between a denial and a fair payout comes down to how well your attorney prepares your case. If a Columbus workplace injury has left you facing an uncertain future, you can trust our lawyers to put that kind of knowledge and preparation to work for you.
If a work-related traumatic brain injury has left you out of work, buried in medical bills, or up against a denied claim, Philip J. Fulton Law Office is here to help. We serve workers in Columbus and throughout Ohio, and we offer free initial consultations with no fees unless we win. Reach out to our law firm today to get our experienced team on your side.
