Hand and Wrist Injuries

Your hands and wrists are so complex that any serious injury to a bone, nerve, or tendon could have serious repercussions. Even if you have the means to cover the initial costs of treatment, recovery rarely stops and ends with a single trip to the emergency room. Instead, you could be forced to take days, weeks, or months away from work, losing critical income while having to pay out-of-pocket for intensive medical procedures and long-term physical therapy.

Suppose you have been injured in an accident that was not your fault. In that case, you may not be liable for your health care costs and other damages, but you cannot expect the insurance company, or its army of in-house lawyers, to offer you a fair deal without first putting in a whole lot of legwork.

Personal Injury Lawsuits and Hand and Wrist Injuries

Hand and wrist injuries have numerous potential causes. However, most accidents are not somebody else’s fault. To file and win a personal injury lawsuit, you will typically have to establish that you were injured as a direct result of another person’s negligence.

You may be entitled to file a claim if you were involved in any of the following:

The above list is by no means exhaustive, but proving another person’s liability in any accident is often much easier said than done. This is because establishing negligence is not simply a matter of showing up to court, handing over evidence, and expecting an insurance company or defense attorney to falter at the prospect of going to trial. It is, after all, what they do for a living, and they are banking on you not knowing what goes into proving legal elements like liability, causation, and loss.

Why the Costs of an Injury Do Not Always End with a Hospital Bill

Lawyers, courts, and insurance companies use the term “damages” to describe all of the different types of loss, hardship, and suffering you have incurred as a result of an accident.

Hand and wrist injuries are not usually life-threatening, but they can certainly be life-changing. Some of the most common types of damages involved in these claims include, but are not limited to, the following:

Your existing medical bills;
Your anticipated and long-term care needs;
The cost of physical rehabilitation;
The income you have lost from work as a result of your injury; and
Physical and emotional pain and suffering.

In an ideal world, all of these different types of damages are supposed to help you reclaim your financial independence—in effect, restoring your “pre-accident condition.” If an insurance company is willing to negotiate, it will usually include at least some compensation for your damages. However, what they might overlook is the possibility that your recovery could last significantly longer than the time it takes to recover from surgery, undergo physical rehabilitation, and return to work.

What happens if you develop a complication or your insurance says it will not pay for further treatment? And what, if anything, can you do if you realize months after an accident that you may never regain full function in your injured hand or wrist?