Louisiana Injury Lawyers Blog
Most injuries are painful, and many can be long-lasting or even lifelong in terms of their effects. Still, there are some injuries that are especially painful and damaging. For example, there is something called a “de-gloving” injury. A de-gloving is incredibly painful and damaging and happens when a large area of skin from a limb is basically ripped off the tissue beneath it. They often result in a lifetime of pain, as well as permanent disability.
There are several types of vehicle accidents that can cause de-gloving injuries, including motorcycle and bicycle crashes, as well as pedestrian accidents. Given the extensiveness of these injuries and the long-lasting effects they cause, including perhaps effectively ending a victim’s ability to work in his previously chosen career, knowing how to secure a full amount of compensation is a must. This is one reason among many to be sure you have a knowledgeable Louisiana injury attorney handling your case.
In court, getting that full compensation can mean many things, including putting on admissible expert evidence. As an example, there’s the case of M.B. M.B. was working at the New Orleans Convention Center when a forklift operator allegedly knocked over several very large panels that fell and struck him. The weight of the panels did massive damage to the carpenter’s right leg. The impact “essentially ‘de-gloved’ [M.B.’s] right leg from the knee down, causing catastrophic blood loss, a ruptured Achilles tendon, and compound leg fractures.”
The benefits of having the right expert witness in your case
When you’re injured in a de-gloving accident, you may never be able to return to the income level you’d achieved prior to your accident. To get the full amount of lost wages compensation you deserve, your case may require an expert witness (or perhaps more than one.)
One type of expert whose opinion may be very helpful is a vocational rehabilitation expert. That expert can provide evidence regarding what kind of vocational rehabilitation the injured person will need, what skills the plaintiff previously had and retained, and what skills were held but lost as a result of the accident. The expert can also take this information and give testimony about what amount of earnings the plaintiff could have expected to earn in the future absent the injury, as compared to the earnings expectations in the aftermath of the accident.
M.B. had such an expert in his case. She testified that, as a result of his injury, M.B. was so physically limited that he was no longer a viable candidate for many light-exertion jobs and basically ruled out of all medium and heavy-exertion jobs. In other words, M.B.’s days working as a carpenter were over. The kinds of jobs that he could perform, post-injury, included things like “unarmed security guard” and “sewing machine operator.” These paid less than half what a journeyman carpenter with M.B.’s experience would earn, according to the expert.
This placed M.B.’s total lost earnings in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the duration of the rest of his working life. This substantial sum clearly illustrates why having a capable vocational rehabilitation expert might be very valuable to your case.
Whether yours was a car, motorcycle or pedestrian accident, and whether yours was a soft tissue injury, de-gloving injury, bone fracture injury or brain injury, your case needs legal counsel who knows how to get you the full sum of compensation to which you’re entitled. For advice and advocacy upon which you can confidently rely, reach out to the Cardone Law Firm and our highly experienced Louisiana injury attorneys. We have many decades of experience handling a wide array of vehicle accidents cases and are ready to get to work for you.
For your confidential consultation contact us online or phone Cardone at 504-522-3333.