West Palm Beach car accident Practice Tools: Sample Cross-Examination- Concessions From West Palm Beach car accident Expert

West Palm Beach car accident Practice Tools: Sample Cross-Examination- Concessions From West Palm Beach car accident Expert

Attorney: The term “mild brain injury” does not mean that a person’s ability to function and to go on with his or her life, is only mildly changed does it?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Typically the term “mild brain injury” has more to do with the degree of tissue difficulty or damage done and not as much to the functional residuals in their life.
Attorney: So a person with a so-called mild brain injury could be profoundly disabled?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Yes.
Attorney: And you’ve run into that in your career?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Yes.
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Attorney: Now people have misconceptions about what can cause a brain injury. We like to call those myths. Let me talk to you about those and see if you agree with me. Do you have to have a loss of consciousness to have a brain injury?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: No.
Attorney: Why not?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: What we know now, I believe, is that many of us have loss of consciousness perhaps sitting through this testimony, you know, that it gets a little dry, that there may be bruising. There may be some topical or deeper loss that doesn’t necessarily impact the level of consciousness. And it could be something very general; it could be something very focused. It really is a case by case.
Attorney: Now can you have a brain injury and have your CT scan be normal?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Yes.
Attorney: You can have an x-ray that would be normal?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Yes.
Attorney: And an MRI, likewise, could that be normal?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Yes.
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Attorney: How many years have you been working with brain-injured people?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Probably for between 20 and 30.
Attorney: As you look back at it, are you surprised at how severely disabled one person may be when you look at the nature of the trauma he or she suffered versus someone else who might have gone through a much more severe trauma and has a good result?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: I’m always surprised by the patients that I see down the road who improve beyond what I expected. I wouldn’t say that I’m ever surprised by severity.
Attorney: So just because the blow to the head might seem relatively minor, it wouldn’t shock you to find out a person could be profoundly disabled by that?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: No.
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Attorney: Do you know what I mean by a prosthesis?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Yes.
Attorney: What’s the prosthesis for a brain injured person?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: There is no prosthesis for a brain injury. An aide probably is the prosthesis.
Attorney: Explain what you mean by a prosthesis.
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: A prosthesis is a replacement organ or a replacement limb or a cosmetic ear. I have a patient who got her hand caught and her fingers were cut off. She has—to see her you wouldn’t know that she had her fingers cut off because she has prosthetic fingers. If you look at them real close, you can see they’re not real, but for most purposes they look real, and she’s able to cosmetically function in the world without bringing attention to herself.
Attorney: And the prosthesis for a brain injured person you say might be an aide?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: An aide, yeah.
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Attorney: Okay, What is the human cost, not in economic terms, but in human cost, the impact on a family member who has to become that prosthesis?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: It’s debilitating.
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Attorney: Can brain injury, even without catastrophic onset, be so profound that in reality it’s not even the same person you married or the same person who gave birth to you?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: That’s right.
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Attorney: And your opinion in this case is that Linda Jones suffered a brain injury in the blow to her head at the restaurant in 1998?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: I said she had a brain injury. I didn’t specify that it came from that, no.
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Attorney: Would she have difficulty understanding, remembering short and simple instructions?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Probably.
Attorney: Would she have difficulty carrying out short and simple instructions?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Yes.
Attorney: Would she have difficulty maintaining concentration, attention for extended periods of time, let’s say two-hour segments?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Yes.
Attorney: Would she have difficulties performing activities within a schedule?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Yes.
Attorney: Would she have difficulties maintaining regular attendance?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: Probably.
Attorney: Would she be punctual, could she be punctual within customary tolerances?
West Palm Beach car accident Expert Witness: I doubt it.