Spinal Cord Injuries

Detroit, Traverse City, and Grand Rapids Attorneys Serving Accident Victims

Spinal cord injuries consist of damage to any part of the cord or nerves at the end of the spinal canal. Often, they result in permanent harm to sensation, strength, and other bodily functions below the injury site. There are many different types of accidents that can give rise to spinal cord injuries, including car crashes, workplace accidents, sports accidents, and dangerous property conditions. If you have been hurt due to someone else’s negligence, the Detroit, Traverse City, and Grand Rapids spinal cord injury lawyers at Neumann Law Group may be able to help you recover damages. Each year for the past several years, our principal, Kelly Neumann, has regularly secured more than $3 million for accident victims.

Establishing Liability for a Spinal Cord Injury

Whether you can control your limb depends on where along your spine the damage was sustained and how severe the injury was. An injury in which all feeling and ability to control one’s movement are lost below the site of the damage is considered “complete.” However, if you do retain sensory or motor function below the site of the damage, the injury is considered “incomplete.”

Types of paralysis arising from spinal cord injuries may be referred to as quadriplegia or paraplegia. With the former, your limbs, hands, torso, and pelvic organs are affected. With the latter, all or part of your torso, legs, and pelvis are affected. Other signs and symptoms of spinal cord injury include loss of bowel control, loss of sensation, loss of movement, changes in sexual function, pain, weakness, and difficulty breathing.

If your spinal cord injury is the result of someone else’s negligence, you may be able to recover economic and noneconomic damages from an at-fault party. In the context of a car accident, for example, a spinal cord injury is likely to be a threshold injury for which you can sue the defendant rather than rely on compensation provided by your own no-fault insurance. To prove negligence, you will have to establish by a preponderance of the evidence the following elements: the defendant’s duty of care, a breach of duty, causation, and damages.

Property owners owe a duty to their invitees (visitors invited onto the property for business reasons) to keep their property reasonably safe by inspecting regularly and either repairing dangerous conditions or providing warnings. If dangerous property conditions are the cause of an accident that results in a spinal cord injury, you will have to establish your status as a visitor to the property and that the property owner or occupier either created the dangerous condition or knew or should have known about it.

For example, if a balcony collapses at a hotel, and you fall two stories, resulting in spinal cord injuries, you will need to show that the hotel knew that the balcony was unstable and failed to fix it or put up warnings to keep guests from going outside. Your attorney will likely need to retain building or construction experts to examine and investigate the balcony to determine whether it was constructed properly or had other defects that could have caused the fall. Experts will also need to offer an opinion about whether the hotel should have known of the instability. The length of the time that the balcony was unstable may be a factor in whether the hotel should have known.

Consult an Experienced Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer in Traverse City, Grand Rapids, or Detroit

Accidents can result in catastrophic injuries. Afterwards, you may be worried about how you will pay your medical expenses, take time off work or change jobs, and cope with the significant life changes associated with these injuries. The Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Traverse City spinal cord injury attorneys at Neumann Law Group may be able to help you recover the compensation you need and deserve. We represent victims in Petoskey, Warren, Holland, Midland, Muskegon, Saginaw, Wyoming, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Flint, Ann Arbor, and communities throughout the Upper Peninsula, as well as in Massachusetts and California. Contact us at 800-525-NEUMANN or via our online form for a free consultation with a personal injury and wrongful death attorney.