While every person who sustains a traumatic brain injury deserves the high quality services of a lawyer with advanced knowledge of traumatic brain injury lawyer, executives, professionals and those with high intelligence or high earning history face some unique issues in TBI legal cases. This video discusses some of the issues unique to these TBI cases.
Executive and Professional Personal Injury Cases
Legal case values break down into a combination of a person's financial losses (referred to in the legal profession as "economic damages") and a person's personal losses (referred to in the legal profession as "noneconomic damages"). Professionals face a variety of unique issues in regard to their economic damage cases, separately addressed in this related blog post. Our method of handling cases for high intelligence and high income individuals is why we are frequently the lawyer of choice for these individuals (including many doctors) when they are injured.
Personal Losses for Executives and Professionals in Traumatic Brain Injury Cases
Lawyer and retired Doctor of Chiropractic, Aaron DeShaw, has created a specialized method of handling traumatic brain injury cases in terms of personal losses, often referred to as "pain and suffering" but which include many different types of personal losses that impact a person's quality of life. One of the key issues for people who had high intelligence before a crash and are dependent upon it for their career is that their cognitive testing may look "normal" or "average" after an injury. Our office has developed a specific way to represent people who had "superior" or "high superior" intelligence before a TBI but have lower cognitive capabilities after an injury. This model is similar to the definitions of mild neurocognitive disorder and moderate neurocognitive disorder in the DSM-V.
The video helps provide a quick overview of this issue. Our method of comparing pre-injury academic and career achievement, or "pre-morbid" testing like the Test of Premorbid Function as compared to the post-injury testing scores is used by other lawyers nationally. Dr. DeShaw is a leading brain injury lawyer in the United States and his video on his method, Writing Demand Letters for Traumatic Brain Injuries, is published by leading legal publisher Trial Guides.
A loss of superior intelligence after a TBI impacts earning capacity and quality of life
Some jobs require higher than average intelligence. No person or employer wants a doctor, lawyer, engineer, coder, CEO or other high level performer with the same intellect as an average person - they want the best of society and their respective profession. The rigors of the training for certain professions, and the necessary investment to succeed requires long term investment and dedication to being the best. While other people were having fun enjoying life in their early years, some people dedicate decades of their life to intellectual pursuits, education, and career development - often in isolation from others and almost always at a cost in terms of quality of life. Their partners and children also sacrificed for a better future. Some people make this sacrifice and put in incredible work hours for a long term benefit later in life. As discussed in Malcolm Gladwell's best seller, Outliers, excellence and success are almost always the result of decades of very hard work. But, a brain injury can deprive you of a lifetime of investment into your career, earning potential and personhood. If someone takes that away from you, there should be full compensation for that loss that reflects the significance of the personal and economic loss that you experience.
This creates a unique challenge for most lawyers. How do you seek compensation for a highly intelligent person now being the same as an average person who doesn't depend on that high intelligence for their career? The insurer will always say that the testing is "normal" even though it is abnormal for the person who was highly intelligent, or exceptionally hard working before the injury. Given our extensive history representing professionals, executives, high income earners, and other people of very high intelligence, we've developed a specific way to represent this group of people who depend heavily on their intelligence.
A good analogy is basketball legend Michael Jordan. Jordan is certainly at the 99th percentile of society in playing basketball. He achieved excellence by working harder than others. Michael Jordan has made well over $1 billion through his high skill level and the sponsorship deals that have followed - most notably his ongoing Jordan brain with Nike. But, if Michael Jordan was injured mid-career and then played at an average level for society (the 50th percentile) his skills would still be "normal" or "average" for the population. In a personal injury case, the insurer would argue that since Jordan was still "normal" or "average" he had no loss. But in reality, Michael Jordan would have earned far less in his career as a basketball player, and it is highly unlikely that any of the additional benefits such as ongoing lucrative sponsorship deals and NBA team ownership would be ongoing. Proving this point, Jordan's initial deal with Nike early in his career was for $500,000. But, his ability to continue playing at the highest level throughout his career lead to total earnings from Nike of over $1.3 billion. This money helped him buy an NBA franchise and make other investments that have pushed his net worth to over $2 billion. Had he been injured and reduced to the basketball skills of an average person in society, he would not have been able to continue his NBA career and he would be worth a tiny fraction of what he is worth today. That is the difference between performing at a "high superior" level and an "average" level.
This is how taking a high performing person and reducing them to average intellectual abilities changes their short and long term personal and financial losses. You can look to many of the greats in any field and ask "would our world be the same if those people had been reduced to average?" The answer is no. There must be a way to demonstrate the difference to seek fair compensation for those who have lost their investment in being exceptional. In addition to changing how the person feels about themselves, it changes their quality of life because of the change in their financial earning capacity and all of the personal impacts that has on the person's life. It really goes beyond this - damaging someone exceptional impacts every person that relies upon their skills. This should not go uncompensated. Without a lawyer who understands how to demonstrate the change between highly performing and average, you will not obtain full and fair compensation for your loss.
If you are a person who relied upon their high intelligence for your job and are now compromised in your ability to perform normally after a brain injury, please call our office for a free consultation at (503) 227-1233.