Catastrophic Brain & Spinal Cord Injuries
$12.5 Million
Overview
At a glance
- The highest-stakes injury cases: Proven with imaging, testing, and life care planning, not adjectives
- What most firms miss: Signs of TBI that do not show on a standard CT scan
- How Robert proves the case: Neurologists, neuropsychologists, biomechanical engineers, and a full life care plan
- The leverage: A trial-ready file that makes lowball offers pointless
The nature of the injury
Catastrophic neurological injuries are the hardest cases in personal injury law to prove and the easiest for an insurer to undervalue. A severe brain injury can change a person's personality, memory, judgment, and ability to work while leaving no visible mark. A spinal cord injury can remove mobility, independence, and the simple ability to care for oneself, yet a defense examiner will often describe the same condition as a pre-existing degenerative change. Many firms overlook subtle signs of traumatic brain injury that do not show on a standard CT scan, and spinal cord damage is routinely reframed by the defense as the natural result of aging rather than the consequence of a collision.
Why these cases are undervalued
Insurance companies know that a catastrophic injury case is expensive to prove. Objective imaging costs money. Expert neurologists, neuropsychologists, and life care planners cost money. A trial presentation that makes a complex injury understandable to a jury takes months of preparation. When a law firm is not willing to spend that money and time, the insurer offers a fraction of what the case is worth and waits. The client is left facing a lifetime of medical need and a settlement designed for a short recovery that never happens.
Robert Simon built his practice on the opposite approach. He collaborates with world-renowned neurologists and biomechanical engineers to prove the long-term cognitive, physical, and emotional impact of catastrophic neurological damage. The objective is a record that makes the injury visible to a jury, supported by imaging, treating physicians, and life care planning that accounts for decades of future need. When the defense understands that this record exists, the negotiating posture changes immediately.
Building the proof
The difference between a catastrophic injury case that settles for its true value and one that collapses is the quality of the medical record. Robert assembles a team that includes:
- The treating neurologist or neurosurgeon who knows the injury's course from day one
- A neuropsychologist who administers standardized cognitive testing
- A rehabilitation specialist who documents the practical realities of daily life
- A life care planner who projects the cost of care across the client's projected lifespan
Imaging is treated with particular care. Standard CT and MRI scans frequently appear normal even after a significant brain injury. Robert works with imaging specialists who use advanced techniques that capture the damage standard scans miss, and he ensures that the imaging is presented to a jury in a way that is honest, understandable, and impossible to confuse with a speculative overlay.
Life care planning and future damages
A catastrophic injury does not end when the acute treatment ends. The client may require attendant care, modified housing, adaptive equipment, lost income for decades, and medical care for the rest of their life. California law permits recovery for all of it, but only if the damages are proven with specificity. Robert builds the future damages case with the same rigor as the liability case, so the figure presented to the jury is a documented projection rather than a number pulled from the air.
The result is a case that insurers cannot devalue. When a catastrophic injury claim is backed by objective imaging, standardized testing, treating physician corroboration, and a full life care plan, the defense faces a jury verdict that far exceeds any settlement offer built on minimizing the injury. That is the leverage Robert brings to every catastrophic injury case.
The defense medical examination
At some point the defense will send its own doctor to examine the client. That examination is not a second opinion, it is a litigation event, and Robert prepares for it the way he prepares for a deposition. The client is told what to expect, what questions may be asked, and what the examiner is trying to do. A favorable report is rare, but a prepared client is far less likely to be maneuvered into answers that can be quoted against them later.
The defense examination is also an opportunity. The examiner's own report becomes evidence, and it frequently documents limitations that contradict the insurer's theory of the case. Robert reviews every defense report line by line and uses the contradictions, because a defense doctor who admits the client cannot return to construction work has just proved a substantial part of the damages case.
Caring for the whole family
A catastrophic injury does not happen to one person, it happens to a household. The spouse becomes a caregiver, the children lose a parent's attention, the family budget is absorbed by medical costs, and the emotional weight settles on everyone. Robert's team is built to recognize that reality, and the case is developed with the family's practical needs in mind: interim costs, guardianship questions, housing modifications, and the strain on the people providing care.
Families also carry the legal burden of being believed. Robert is the advocate who carries it for them, translating the clinical record into a story a jury can follow and standing between the family and the machinery of insurance claims. The family's job is to care for each other. The litigation is Robert's job.
Why experience matters
Catastrophic injury cases are measured in years, not months. They are staffed by specialist teams on both sides, and they are decided by the quality of the preparation done in the first year. Robert has spent his career handling exactly these cases, and the depth of that experience shows in the experts retained, the records organized, and the defense's early recognition that the case cannot be bought cheaply.
Insurers track law firms the way investors track companies. They know which firms prepare catastrophic injury cases for trial and which firms fold under pressure. Robert's standing in that marketplace is itself an asset to his clients, because it shapes every settlement conversation from the first call.
Cases We Handle
- Traumatic brain injury and diffuse axonal injury
- Spinal cord injury, paraplegia, and quadriplegia
- Skull fracture and intracranial hemorrhage
- Anoxic and hypoxic brain injury
- Complex orthopedic trauma with neurological involvement
- Injuries requiring lifetime attendant care
- Brain injuries from motor vehicle collisions
- Brain injuries from falls and premises accidents
- Neurological injuries from medical negligence
- Chronic pain conditions with neurologic cause
- Loss of consciousness and coma cases
- Injuries involving speech, memory, and executive function loss
- Spinal injuries requiring fusion or stabilization surgery
- Post-traumatic movement and seizure disorders
- Cases involving diminished earning capacity
- Ventilator dependence and long-term rehabilitation needs
- Injuries requiring wheelchair access modifications
- Cervical and lumbar spine injuries with nerve damage
- Acquired brain injury from delayed diagnosis
- Family and caregiver loss of services claims
- Injuries requiring assistive communication devices
- Cases involving spinal cord stimulator and pain management needs
- Catastrophic injuries in older adults and children
- Secondary complications including pressure sores and infections
Our Approach
Trial preparation from day one
Every catastrophic injury case is built for trial from the first week. That means preserving evidence before it disappears, retaining specialists early, and documenting the day-to-day reality of the injury while it is happening rather than reconstructing it years later. Emergency records are gathered immediately.
The accident scene is preserved and documented.
The treating team is engaged before records are lost or memories fade.
Documenting the injury in real time
Robert works alongside treating physicians, neuropsychologists, vocational experts, and life care planners to quantify what the injury actually costs across a lifetime. The family is asked to keep a practical journal of the changes they observe: what the injured person can no longer do, what help they now need, how their personality and routines have shifted. That contemporaneous record is powerful evidence because it is made before the case is filed and before any litigation strategy exists.
Vocational and economic loss
A catastrophic injury frequently ends a career. Robert works with vocational experts to document the work the client can no longer perform and with forensic economists to calculate the lost earnings, lost benefits, and lost retirement across the client's work life. The economic analysis is built from the client's actual employment history, not from statistical averages, so the number the jury sees reflects the specific life the injury changed.
Using readiness as leverage
Insurers respond to a case that is genuinely ready for a courtroom, and that readiness is the leverage. When the defense knows the plaintiff's team has already retained experts, completed the imaging, and prepared the life care plan, the calculus changes. A settlement offer is no longer a starting point for negotiation but a comparison against the projected verdict. Robert's catastrophic injury cases are prepared so completely that the trial presentation is finished before meaningful settlement talks begin, and that is exactly why insurers engage seriously.
Negotiating from strength
When the record is complete, negotiation becomes a comparison, not a contest. The insurer's offer is measured against the projected verdict, and the defense knows the projection is realistic because the case is ready to be tried tomorrow. Robert has the trial experience to make that threat credible, and he uses it deliberately: offers that do not reflect the value of the case are declined without drama, and the case moves forward on schedule.
That posture frequently produces the result clients want most: a settlement that reflects the true value of the case without requiring the family to sit through a trial. When it does not, the case is tried, and Robert has the courtroom experience to present a catastrophic injury case to a jury with precision and force.
If the case goes to trial
Robert tries the cases the insurers refuse to settle fairly. The trial presentation is built around the record assembled from the beginning: the imaging, the testing, the life care plan, and the witnesses who describe the life the injury changed. Juries respond to evidence, and a catastrophic injury case with a complete evidentiary record is the strongest case that exists in personal injury law.