Special Issues with Facial Injuries
Facial injuries can be devastating and traumatic. In the personal injury context, they are different from other types of injuries; the very appearance of a scar, a wound, or disfigurement may need to be compensated. Much more than visible damage to other parts of the body, facial injuries can cause emotional distress, affect quality of life, or require reconstructive surgery. How does a personal injury case function or change when the injury is to a victim’s face? Consider these special issues.
Variety of Causes
Facial injuries can result from a variety of causes, including auto accidents, accidents involving other vehicles like planes or boats, defective products, burns, and assaults or batteries. Facial injuries also result from dog bite injuries, and can be particularly severe for young children, whose faces will continue to grow (making medical treatment and reconstruction more difficult and even calling for multiple reconstructive surgeries over the course of the child’s life).
Specific Needs
Other types of personal injuries to a person’s body may not require compensation for reconstructive or purely cosmetic surgical procedures. But facial injuries may well require such medical procedures, and a personal injury claim could include a request for compensation to cover corrective or cosmetic treatment to attempt to return the victim to his or her previous appearance and quality of life.
Continual Complications
When a bone breaks, it will eventually heal. But for facial injuries, the soft tissue of the face can require years of reconstruction and even physical therapy or operations to correct damage like loss of sensation, difficulty breathing, double vision, damage to the teeth or dental implants, or loss of jaw movement. It may not always be clear at the outset of making a claim for a facial injury just how much compensation will be appropriate or necessary.
Pain and Suffering
Most personal injury cases have limited capacities for receiving damages for pain and suffering, or emotional distress. But requests for these damages can be important in cases of personal injury that involve injuries to the face or neck. An lawyer with experience in advocating for damages for pain and suffering can help a claimant with a facial injury receive the compensation to which they are entitled.
The Need for Individualized Attention
Car crash cases are relatively similar to one another; each has a similar cause and can produce predictable types of injuries. The same could be said for slip, trip, or falling cases. But due to the variety of possible causes and the wide range of severity, personal injury cases involving facial injuries can be very fact-specific; each case can vary widely from the last, and a prediction on how the case will turn out or what damages will be granted is much more difficult to make. If you have sustained an injury to your face through a personal injury, consider scheduling a consultation with an experienced Tampa personal injury lawyer at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian. Call toll-free at 1 (800) 227-2275 for a consultation today.
