Dan needed to get to the airport to fly to LA for a business meeting. He called a Lyft to take him from his home to SeaTac airport. As they were driving to the airport, the Lyft driver kept tailgating a car in front of them in the Route 99 tunnel. The car in front got annoyed with the Lyft driver and rather than changing lanes to let him pass, the driver then slammed on his brakes and came to a stop, causing the Lyft vehicle to rear-end the car in front of it.

The entire incident was caught with the Lyft driver’s dash camera. Upon impact, Dan’s was thrown forward and hit the head rest in front of him. He was later diagnosed with a head injury by the urgent care center he went to. He received a short course of physical therapy and chiropractic care for his orthopedic injuries. After 2 months, his ne.ck and back problems were under control, but his cognitive issues continued to bother him along with headaches, light sensitivity, sleep disturbance, mood irritability and on-going cognitive impairments. The impact that of memory loss, altered thinking and inability to multitask had affected his ability to run his once-thriving business. He eventually had to close his business and seek a job that was less taxing on his brain. Dan started neurorehabilitation program, and after a thorough examination of his cognitive impairments, he was then referred out for neuropsychological testing for a more thorough clinical assessment of his cognitive deficits, despite more therapy, his symptoms persisted, and he struggled to stay up with the demands of his new job.

As a result, Dan was referred to a neurologist who also diagnosed a brain injury and recommended more cognitive therapy. Despite this, his cognitive function never returned to his pre-injury state. Daniel’s life has been profoundly affected by his cognitive dysfunction, more than his physical injuries, and it created a barrier to his work, affected his daily living activities and has had an emotional impact on his personal relationships with his family.

Despite all of his problems, the insurance companies for Lyft and the car in front of the Lyft both denied he had a brain injury, and hired one of the “usual suspect” deniers of concussions to come up with the usual silly excuses for why they thought his cognitive problems were all caused by anything but hitting his head as the video showed. This is when he came to BILS to get some expert help in dealing with the insurance companies who try this tactic in seemingly every case. The attorneys at BILS were able to quickly show how absurd the “there is no injury here” position was by obtaining enhanced imaging of Dan’s brain to objectively show that there was in fact brain damage. After producing this evidence, and deposing the defendant’s hired gun” insurance doctors, both insurance carriers quickly realized it was better to settle the case for a fair amount rather than risking going to trial and having a jury tell them otherwise.

Between the two insurance carriers, they paid a total of $1.25 million to resolve a case that they started out saying there was not brain injury until BILS proved otherwise.