Law Office of Scott A. Nelson, P.C.

Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome (RSDS) is a condition with multiple conflicting and odd, even bizarre symptoms. The one symptom which seems to be consistent is pain, often excruciating. The injured person’s complaints of severe pain often are not accepted at face value because the factor causing the pain is often not the one which is associated with the extreme symptoms.

Personal injury lawyers should understand that RSDS may occur in any area of the body, but the most common is in the person’s extremities. One of the biggest problems with RSDS is the failure of the treating doctors to diagnose it. The typical history of a very slight blunt trauma to a small area of an extremity usually does not result in serious problems to the entire extremity. The doctor may then think the problem is in the person’s head and then send them out for psychological help. Moreover, the person’s family also may think that the problem is in the person’s head. This may cause great despair and sadness to the injured person.

There may be a significant negligence or personal injury action against the defendant who caused the initial slight trauma. This is similar to a case where a hemophiliac bleeds to death from a slight cut. Moreover, there may be a medical negligence claim if the doctor failed to make a timely diagnosis.

RSDS was described in a study by various doctors in 1864. These doctors studied Civil War soldiers who were shot in the extremities and developed a syndrome consisting of constant and persistent burning pain with progressive trophic changes. They named the condition "erythromelalgia." Over the years, the condition has had many names.

The cause of RSDS is not clearly known at this time. It appears that the sympathetic nervous symptom may turn on in an attempt to help the person’s body deal with the original trauma, but then fails to turn off and remains "hyperactive." RSDS may affect all levels of tissue, including muscle, bone, skin, subcutaneous, fascia and synovium. Symptoms are often varied and contradictory, if not bizarre.

Contact Corpus Christi personal injury lawyer Scott Nelson if you have been seriously injured and need assistance.  Mr. Nelson serves Houston, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, Laredo and all of Texas.

A jury may award as compensation for a wrongful death the damages that it finds proportionate to the injury or harm sustained by the statutory beneficiaries because of the death. A jury will also divide and apportion the award among the beneficiaries enumerated by statute. The damages will be determined as of the date of death.

In an action for a child’s death, the child’s parents may recover the pecuniary (or dollar value) of the child’s services from the time of death until the child reaches the age of 18. However, the cost of the child’s education, support and maintenance is subtracted. The value of any pecuniary contributions the child would have, in reasonable probability, given his parents after the age of 18 is added to the award.

To determine the amount the child would have contributed to the parents had the child lived, courts consider the following factors:

(1) the age, intelligence, health and disposition of the child;

(2) the amount and value of the child’s labor around the house; and

(3) the child’s expected contribution to the family while the parents were alive;

Where there is an adult child, the parents can generally recover the amount of future pecuniary contributions that the child, would have been expected to make to the parents. Some of the factors to be considered include the child’s financial condition, the child’s disposition toward the parent, and the financial condition of the parent. Parents may also recover for the loss of companionship and society of their child and for mental anguish caused by the child’s death.

A surviving spouse may recover the financial contributions which he or she would have received, as well as pecuniary value of intangible services which the surviving spouse would have received. The may also recover damages for mental anguish and loss of companionship.

Contact Galveston wrongful death lawyer Scott Nelson if you need assistance with a wrongful death claim.

Under the Wrongful Death Act, a surviving spouse is a statutory beneficiary. A surviving common-law spouse is also considered to be a statutory beneficiary. However, a surviving putative spouse is not considered to be a statutory beneficiary.

Adult or minor children can bring an action for the wrongful death of a parent. Although legally adopted children are considered statutory beneficiaries, a child who was treated by the decedent as an adopted child but without formal adoption proceedings will not be considered as a statutory beneficiary. An adopted child van not sue for the wrongful death of a natural parent whose parental rights were terminated. Since the right to sue for wrongful death is a statutory right and not a right which was inherited from the parent, it is divested from the child at the time of termination of the parental rights. Regardless of the marital status of the parents, a child has a wrongful death cause of action for the death of his biological parents.

Under the Texas Wrongful Death Act, parents of a decedent are statutory beneficiaries. Whether the child was a minor or an adult when the child died does not matter. Since children who have been formally adopted are treated in the same manner as natural children, an adoptive parent may bring an action for the wrongful death of an adopted child. Someone who acted in the place of a parent but without formal adoption proceedings may not sue for wrongful death.

A mother and father have a cause of action for the death of their child because of prenatal injuries if the child was viable when the injuries occurred and was born alive. There is not a wrongful death cause of action for the death of an unborn fetus. However, damages from the death of an unborn fetus may be recovered as elements of the mother’s damages. These damages include medical and funeral expenses for the fetus.

Contact Corpus Christi wrongful death lawyer Scott Nelson if you need assistance with a wrongful death claim.

Two separate actions may be brought when wrongfully inflicted injuries lead to a person’s death. The first one is based on the Wrongful Death Act. This act provides a statutory cause of action for the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the deceased. The act is intended to compensate them for the losses suffered as a result of the wrongful death. There is no common law wrongful death cause of action.

The other action which can be brought because of wrongfully inflicted injuries which result in death is a common-law action for damages sustained by the deceased. If not for the death, no statutory authority would be necessary to support the action. The Survival Act provides that most actions for personal injuries do not stop or abate because of the death of the tortfeasor or the victim.

The wrongful act, carelessness or negligence which forms the basis of liability in a wrongful death action must be of such degree or character that the act would have allowed the injured party to maintain an action for the injuries if he had not died. The defendant may present any defense which would have been available in a suit brought by the deceased. Since wrongful death actions are seen as derivative of the deceased’s rights, plaintiff stands "in the legal shoes of the decedent. Accordingly, wrongful death claims are not allowed when the deceased’s action would have been barred because of governmental immunity.

The defenses of justifiable homicide and self-defense may be raised in wrongful death actions. In 2007, legislation expanded the right of a person to use force, including deadly force, in self-defense and to prevent murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping.

In a wrongful death action, recovery of actual damages may be reduced or even barred because of the responsibility of the deceased or a beneficiary, or both, for the death. The wrongful death action may only be brought by the statutory beneficiaries, not by other surviving relatives, such as brothers or sisters.

Contact Galveston wrongful death lawyer Scott Nelson if a loved one has been killed by someone’s negligent activities and you need counsel.

Compensatory damages may be awarded in negligence actions. This may also include damages for mental anguish, when there are also physical injuries. Damage awards can be quite large in serious personal injury cases and catastrophic accidents.

Additionally, exemplary or punitive damages may be awarded, such as in the case of gross negligence where it can be shown that the defendant had subjective effectual awareness of an extreme risk created by the defendant’s conduct.

A person who is placed in danger or peril by the negligence of another, but escapes without injury or physical harm, may not recover damages simply because he has been placed in a perilous situation. Fright is not the subject of damages.

Texas has a comparative negligence statute, which allows for proportionate responsibility for, and recovery of damages in certain civil actions. For instance, where a jury awards a plaintiff $100,000.00, but finds that the defendant was 70% at fault and the plaintiff was 30% at fault, the plaintiff will only receive 70% of the award, or $70,000.00.

Mitigation of damages, or damages that reasonably could have been avoided, is a factor courts consider when the issue is properly plead and proven. The San Antonio Court of Appeals has noted that evidence must be shown that clearly shows a plaintiff’s failure to mitigate caused further damages, and the evidence must be sufficient to guide the jurors in deciding which damages were attributable to the plaintiff’s failure to mitigate.

The responsibility or burden of proving a failure to mitigate damages in a negligence proceeding is on the party which caused the loss. The standard is that of ordinary care, which is what an ordinary prudent person would have done under the same or similar circumstances. The duty to mitigate damages arises only if can be done with small expense or with reasonable exertion of effort.

Contact Corpus Christi personal injury attorney Scott Nelson if you are injured in a work-related accident and need representation.

Many personal injury cases have a negligence cause of action. In a negligence case, the plaintiff must prove that the breach of a duty owed by the defendant to the plaintiff was both the actual and proximate cause of the injuries sustained by the plaintiff.

Two distinct concepts are embraced by proximate cause: cause in fact and foreseeability. The doctrine of proximate cause establishes the line of legal causation and ultimately involves weighing human conduct and various policy considerations. Proximate cause cannot be satisfied by guess, speculation or mere conjecture. The evidence must ultimately show that the negligence was the proximate, and not simply the remote, cause of the injuries. The conclusion must be that the injury was a natural and probable result of the negligence.

To establish cause in fact in a negligence action, a person must show that the act or omission was a substantial factor in bringing about the injuries and, without it, the harm or injuries would not have occurred. This is a delicate determination.

A "producing cause" is an act that is a substantial factor which brings about a harm or injury and without which an injury would not have occurred. Proximate cause and producing cause are not the same. Foreseeability is an element of proximate cause but not for producing cause.

The proximate cause of an event causing harm or injury has been defined as ‘that cause which, in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any new and independent cause, produces the injury, and without which the injury would not have occurred." When an action sets into motion a natural and unbroken chain of events leading directly and proximately to a reasonably foreseeable result or injury, then it is a proximate cause of that harm or injury.

Contact Corpus Christi personal injury attorney Scott Nelson if you or a loved one has been injured by negligence.