San Francisco Bay Area Personal InjuryAuto Accident Lawyers Medical & Obstetrical Malpractice, Elder Abuse, Pharmaceutical Product Liability Ortho Evra Attorneys, Food Poisoning, Ecoli HUS & Listeria Lawyer Premises Liability Slip And Fall Attorney, Car Motorcycle Big Rig Truck & Bicycle Accident Lawyers Traumatic Brain Injury TBI and Paralysis Quadriplegia Paraplegia Spinal Cord Injury Lawyers, Serving San Francisco Oakland & The Bay Area

Our San Francisco Bay Area personal injury attorneys are highly qualified, extensively experienced and nationally acclaimed trial lawyers. We concentrate on serious and catastrophic injury cases. We represent clients in serious injury car, motorcycle, Big Rig truck and bicycle accident cases. We are medical and obstetrical malpractice lawyers for birth injury cases, cerebral palsy and Erb's brachial plexus palsy cases. Our San Francisco food poisoning lawyer represents clients in Ecoli HUS TTP and Listeriosis cases, as well as Botulism, Campylobacter, Norovirus, Salmonella and Shigella in outbreak litigation. Our pharmaceutical product lawyers are very highly experienced in drug and medical device litigation, currently considering Ortho Evra cases. Our serious injury San Francisco slip and fall commercial and residential premises liability lawyers and accident attorneys represent clients who have suffered traumatic brain injury TBI, paralysis, quadriplegia, paraplegia and other serious spinal cord injury. We are your San Francisco serious and catastrophic injury lawyers for Berkeley, Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Below we will discuss briefly our credentials and experience in each of the fields of our practice and specifically our qualifications as serious injury lawyers and our experience and strategies for catastrophic injury litigation. For a more complete discussion of our qualifications and approach in the specific legal subject matter involved in your case, please consider our "Practice Areas" menu.

Our principle interest is in serious injury litigation arising in each of our practice areas, and our San Francisco trial lawyers have provided a page devoted specifically to the preparation and presentation of "Serious and Catastrophic Injury Litigation." Serious injury cases are always complex, even in the simplest liability auto accident or premises liability slip and fall cases, and require the expertise of a highly experienced San Francisco catastrophic injury lawyer, specifically because the presentation of the elements of damages are complex. Our San Francisco trial lawyers experience in complex medical cases grounds us in the experience to present complex medical evidence. You may review our San Francisco trial lawyers approach to preparing and presenting general and special damages in serious injury litigation discussed briefly below and by reviewing our "Serious and Catastrophic Injury Litigation" page. Our San Francisco serious injury attorneys have also prepared specific pages devoted to traumatic brain injury, TBI, and a spinal cord injury lawyers page devoted to paralysis, quadriplegia, paraplegia and other serious spinal cord injuries.

After reviewing our San Francisco bay area lawyers credentials and approach to the pertinent subject matters of our practice areas, you are welcome to contact us for a free consultation. Simply submit the e-mail "Case Evaluation Request," and one of our highly qualified San Francisco serious injury lawyers will contact you to discuss the facts of your case, review your injuries, prognosis and economic damages, and will provide you with his case evaluation and recommendations. We are pleased to consider your case arising anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California.

Our San Francisco Personal Injury Trial Lawyers Are Highly Qualified, Experienced, and Nationally Acclaimed Medical Malpractice and Pharmaceutical Product Liability Lawyers; Bay Area Serious Injury Attorneys for Car, Big Rig Truck, Motorcycle and Bicycle Accident Cases; San Francisco Food Poisoning Lawyer for Ecoli HUS and Listeria Cases, Elder Abuse Attorney and Premises Liability Slip and Fall Lawyers. San Francisco Traumatic Brain Injury TBI and Paralysis Attorneys for Quadriplegia Paraplegia and Other Spinal Cord Injury Cases, Serving the Bay Area

Immediately below we will discuss briefly our San Francisco personal injury attorney qualifications, track record, trial lawyer recognition and national acclaim. Below that we will discuss our San Francisco trial lawyers approach to serious and catastrophic injury litigation. Immediately below that we will discuss briefly our experience and strategies as serious injury auto accident lawyers for big rig truck, car, motorcycle and bicycle accident litigation as well as our San Francisco premises liability lawyers approach to serious injury slip and fall cases. Our San Francisco medical and obstetrical malpractice lawyers, elder abuse and pharmaceutical product liability attorneys will discuss our landmark successes, and successes in complex food poisoning litigation, as well as our particular focus on traumatic brain injury and paralysis cases involving quadriplegia, paraplegia and serious spinal cord injury cases.

The Credentials of our San Francisco Personal Injury Attorney, Ray Henke, His Track Record in Serious Injury Complex Litigation, The Recognition He Has Received from his Trial Lawyer Peers.

Attorney, Ray Henke, obtained his juris doctorate degree from the University of San Francisco Law School in 1979. While attending the University of San Francisco, he externed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, received the American Jurisprudence Award and served on the University of San Francisco Law Review.

San Francisco trial attorney, Henke, has prosecuted personal injury cases throughout Northern and Southern California, from San Francisco and Santa Clara County to Los Angeles and San Diego. He has obtained many multimillion dollar verdicts for his clients, some of them landmark verdicts in complex litigation, discussed in the left column of this page. He is a member of the "Million Dollar Advocates Forum" commonly referred to as the "most prestigious trial lawyer group in the United States," also listed as one of the "Top Lawyers in America."

San Francisco personal injury lawyer, Ray Henke, and his law firm are rated "AV" by Martindale & Hubbell, the highest rating awarded by the most highly respected attorney rating directory in the United States. The Martindale & Hubbell rates lawyers based on its investigation which includes interviews with judges before whom the attorney has tried cases and interviews with other prominent lawyers who are knowledgeable about the attorney's legal ability and ethical standards. The "A" stands for "very high to preeminent" in "legal ability" and the "V" stands for "very high" "general ethical standards. According to Martindale & Hubbell, "AV Peer Review Rating shows that a lawyer has reached the height of professional excellence. He or she has usually practiced law for many years, and is recognized for the highest levels of skill and integrity."

San Francisco personal injury lawyer, Henke and his cases have received substantial recognition in California and national legal journals, from "California Lawyer" to the "National Law Journal." Mr. Henke's trial work and cases have been chronicled also in many articles in the legitimate print media, from the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner to the Washington Post, from the front page of the New York Times to the front page of the Los Angeles Times. His cases and trial work have been the subject of feature legitimate national and international news segments, including Tom Brokaw's NBC Evening News to CNN.

San Francisco and Northern and Southern California personal injury lawyer, Ray Henke, has also received substantial professional recognition from his trial lawyer peers. Attorney Henke was elected and reelected Governor of the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Association and Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, the fifth largest trial lawyer association in the United States, and was nominated for the "Trial Lawyer of the Year" for his landmark victory in the first AIDS medical fraud case in the United States.

The above referenced AIDS fraud case provides an example of the determination that San Francisco personal injury lawyer, Ray Henke, brings to his trial work. He tried the cases of 5 of his AIDS clients who were close to death together in a single consolidated 4 month trial against their physicians and one hospital so that they could all obtain their day in court before they passed away. The case was brought against the physicians and hospital for conspiracy to defraud their AIDS patients with phony AIDS "cures." San Francisco and California trial attorney, Henke's experts in the case included Luc Montagnier, the discoverer of HIV and head of France's National AIDS Laboratories, Michael Gotlieb, the discoverer of AIDS and cofounder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, Don Francis, the head of the CDC's first AIDS task force, and discoverer that AIDS was a sexually transmitted disease, John Curnutte, the head of the largest AIDS vaccine project in the world, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he supervised the work of over 100 scientists, and a dozen others of the most highly respected AIDS scientists in the world. Attorney Henke obtained a multimillion dollar jury verdict for his clients, including a $1.9 million dollar punitive damage verdict to set an example of the hospital for joining in the conspiracy to defraud the AIDS patients. The verdict was widely credited to contribute to raising the medical standards of care in AIDS medicine. San Francisco and California personal injury lawyer, Ray Henke, testified before Congress about the case and its implications, on the invitation of the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives.

San Francisco personal injury lawyer, Ray Henke, has prosecuted many important cases, including other complex medical and pharmaceutical product liability "test" cases in Northern and Southern California. His cases have ranged from complex product liability cases to serious injury auto and motorcycle accident cases, from product liability to helmet defect litigation. Henke's cases have most involved serious injury and catastrophic injuries, brain injury cases to birth injury and birth defect cases, catastrophic orthopedic injury cases, cases of debilitating internal injury requiring huge future medical expense, limb amputations, spinal cord injury cases, and many other cases involving serious and catastrophic injury. You may consider San Francisco trial attorney, Ray Henke's approach to litigation in subject matter similar to yours by consulting our "Practice Areas" menu.

We welcome you also to contact us for a free consultation. Submit the e-mail "San Francisco Personal Injury Attorneys Case Evaluation Request" and Mr. Henke or one of our highly qualified Henke Law Group San Francisco trial attorneys best qualified to evaluate your case will contact you to discuss the facts of your case, your injuries, prognosis and economic damage, and will provide his case consultation and recommendations.

Our San Francisco Bay Area Personal Injury Attorneys Discuss Our Strategies for the Successful Prosecution of California Catastrophic Injury Litigation In Car, Motorcycle and Big Rig Truck Auto Accident Cases, Medical Malpractice and Product Liability Litigation, Food Poisoning, Premises Liability, Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI, Paralysis, Birth Defect and Birth Injury Cases.

Every serious injury case is a complex case, requires experienced, sophisticated personal injury trial lawyers, competent in the preparation and presentation of the complex elements general and special damages, including through the testimony of qualified teams of experts. Even the simplest San Francisco rear end car, motorcycle or big rig truck accident case requires highly experience serious injury trial lawyers both to prepare and present the client's catastrophic damages, and, equally important, superior San Francisco trial lawyers with the knowledge and investigatory skills to identify all potential sources of liability, insurance and assets to compensate the seriously injury client for his damages.

Below our San Francisco personal injury lawyers will discuss the outlines of our strategies for preparing and presenting general and special damages in serious injury litigation. For a more full discussion of the strategy, our San Francisco and California serious injury attorneys have prepared a "Serious & Catastrophic Injury Lawyers" page which you are invited to review to appreciate the complexity of presenting the elements of general and special damages in serious injury litigation. Since it is very often true, as for example, in the "simple" car, motorcycle and even big rig truck accident case that the driver of the vehicle will carry woefully inadequate insurance to compensate the seriously injured client's general and economic damages, our experienced San Francisco auto accident lawyers will discuss a few of our creative strategies for identifying sources of insurance and assets to assure that our clients will have the very best opportunity to obtain full compensation.

Our San Francisco Serious Injury Lawyers Discuss the Complexities of Presenting of General and Special Damages in Every Serious or Catastrophic Injury Case Including "Simple" Car, Motorcycle, Big Rig Truck and Premises Liability Slip and Fall Cases.

All personal injury litigation involves issues of "liability," commonly negligence and causation; and "damages." The liability in any particular case can be extremely complex or very simple. The presentation of general and special economic damages in serious injury litigation is always complex. In a medical malpractice case the law requires expert testimony to prove that the physician was negligent, phrased in terms of his "failure to comply with the standard of care." In Pharmaceutical product liability cases proving that the drug is defective, and that it was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff's injuries can require a dozen or more experts. Food poisoning litigation may require extraordinary investigation to establish that it was a particular food product, manufactured by a particular company through which the food was contaminated and led to the client's serious illness. These are issues of liability unique to the particular case, but in each of these cases, and in every other serious injury case, whether it be a birth defect or birth injury case or a simple slip and fall or auto accident case resulting in traumatic brain injury or paralysis, the damage case will always be complex, and require meticulous and sophisticated preparation and highly competent presentation to assure that the client receives full compensation for his injuries and damages.

Every serious injury case is unique, but our experienced San Francisco personal injury lawyers have a number of general strategies for the presentation of damages that can be explained as applicable to all serious and catastrophic injury cases.

"General damages" are commonly referred to by personal injury lawyers a "pain and suffering" damages, but in serious injury litigation specifically our San Francisco personal injury lawyers conceive that the often overlooked measure of "loss of enjoyment of life" is often equally or more important. The catastrophically injured client, will certainly suffer great pain, but his loss of enjoyment of life will often be permanent as where he suffers traumatic brain injury, paralysis, quadriplegia, paraplegia or other serious spinal cord injury, debilitating internal injury, catastrophic orthopedic injury, or amputated limbs. Our San Francisco personal injury lawyers will commonly present the "pain and suffering damages" through the client's testimony supported by the testimony of the treating physicians or specialists engaged by the lawyer to provide the "objective" evidence to support the client's description of the subjective pain. Equally important to our San Francisco serious injury lawyers presentation of "loss of enjoyment of life damages," these same experts are useful to describe the nature of the clients injury and the extent of his physical limitations. Our San Francisco trial lawyers will meet extensively also with the client, his family members and friends, and will piece together also their photographs and home movies to present a complete picture of all the types of activities the client enjoyed before the accident that he can no longer enjoy because of his injuries. Against this evidence our San Francisco personal injury lawyers will juxtapose a professionally produced "Day in the Life" documentary portraying the courage with which our client faces the enormous difficulties and challenges of his or her post-accident daily life. It is the experience of our San Francisco and California trial lawyers that most of our client's prefer to portray themselves in this way, and it is our trial lawyer experience also that presenting our clients as courageous, even if it is just helping to transfer from bed to wheelchair, the settlement judge or jury to whom we will present this case will more likely identify with the client and sympathize with the client as someone meeting their life challenges as the judge or juror would hope that they might if similarly injured.

Again, very briefly here, "special damages" include past and future medical expense and past and future loss of earnings. Past medical expense in most cases is simple enough to prepare and present, merely a complete accounting of all the medical and hospital and related bills accumulated through the date of the settlement conference or trial. Future medical expenses in the serious injury case is always complex, as our San Francisco and Northern and Southern California trial lawyers approach it, requiring a number of medical and expert witnesses, including perhaps most importantly a professional "life care planner" and a forensic economist. The first challenge of our experienced San Francisco personal injury lawyers must be to establish the client's post accident "life expectancy." This requires multiple experts, physicians to describe the client's injuries as they may impact upon his life expectancy and then others to apply government statistics for persons of the same age suffering similar injuries. Our San Francisco serious injury lawyers will then task the professional "life care planner" with gathering the information from the client's treating physicians and/or experts engaged by the attorneys listing all of the medical expenses for convalescent care or home nursing or attendant care, physician visits, visits with rehabilitation specialists, surgeons, costs of additional surgeries that may be required or replacement prostheses or other equipment, medicines, special beds, converted vans or vehicles, and every other expense that the client will require during every month of every year of the remainder of his life expectancy. The experienced San Francisco serious injury attorney will then review the completed "life care plan" to determine that it is complete and that the items contained in the report are reasonable, and then he will present it to his forensic economist. The economist will first increase each of the costs over the life expectancy of the client applying generally accepted government statistics on medical cost inflation for each category of medical expense, and then discount the total to "present cash value" again using government statistics with regard to the general rates of inflation. The product is the client's measure of future medical expense.

Past and future loss of earnings calculations are commonly just as complex and sometimes more complex. Whether the client was seriously injured as the result of medical malpractice or a defective product or food poisoning, or a car or motorcycle accident or slip and fall, our San Francisco serious injury lawyers recognize that the often sad fact is that the client will be deprived of his ability to continue in the profession or trade that he has trained for and worked to gain proficiency. Every loss of earnings case is unique. Some may be more complex, as in the case of a businessman who following the accident lost the income stream and growth of his business, or the minor who has never worked, or the homemaker who has not been employed in economic pursuit for many years, both of whom would be entitled still to their loss of earning capacity. But for the purpose of "simplifying the complexity" for purposes of this quick discussion, we will take the simplest case of the daily wage earner. Again, the past earnings losses might be as simple as just multiplying the wage earnings daily wage times the number of days of work from the date of the accident through the date of the settlement conference or trial. In order to properly present future loss of earnings, our San Francisco serious injury lawyers approach is considerably more complex, again necessarily involving the contributions of a number of experts, including perhaps most importantly a professional "vocational rehabilitation expert" and a forensic economist. In some cases the client may not be able to return to economically productive endeavor following the accident, as where he or she has suffered profound traumatic brain injury or quadriplegia. In some cases the client will have already made strides to return to the work force in a new profession. In every case where the client still has the capacity to work, the experienced San Francisco serious injury trial lawyer recognizes that the measure of future loss of earnings is the "net" earnings losses. In the simplest case again, our San Francisco trial lawyer's first task must be to obtain at least two "work life expectancy" calculations, first the client's pre-accident "work life expectancy" and second, his post-accident "work life expectancy," derived from the medical information with regard to the clients pre and post accident medical condition, and then application of generally accepted government statistics. The vocational rehabilitation expert will meet with the client, gather the facts with regard to his previous employment, obtain his employment history and where applicable his educational records, he will be provided the clients medical records and speak to the client's treating physicians or medical specialists hired by our San Francisco serious injury lawyers to define the client's post accident physical limitations. The vocational rehabilitation expert will also commonly administer a battery of vocational tests. And on the basis of the information he will present our San Francisco personal injury lawyers a report detailing the careers and trades which are foreclosed to the client and those in which the client can still reasonably participate. Our San Francisco serious injury attorneys will then provide the report to our forensic economist who will apply government wage growth statistics to arrive at the totals and difference between the pre and post accident income streams over the course of the client's pre-accident and post-accident work life expectancies, and then discount the total to "present dollars."

It is our experienced San Francisco and California serious injury lawyers belief that if our clients, even our catastrophically injured clients, can make some effort, if they are able at all, toward returning to the work force, even if just to look into the possibilities of retraining for a very different profession, again it can have the effect both to add credibility to our evaluation of future earnings losses over those which will be presented by the defendants attorneys, and it will again create greater identification and sympathy in the settlement judge and juror's again to find that the client is confronting his life's obstacles as they would hope to if similarly injured. It is also one of the greatest rewards of our San Francisco serious injury attorneys when we find that the client on his own, or with the help of our vocational rehabilitation expert, is enabled to see opportunities to remain a productive member of society that he might not have considered otherwise.

Serious injury litigation is always complex, whether the accident or incident which has caused the injury is a defective drug, or medical malpractice or elder abuse, toxic exposure or a food poisoning, or simple motorcycle or car or bicycle accident. The litigation requires San Francisco personal injury lawyers who are experienced and capable of preparing and presenting complex litigation. Pleas feel welcome to contact our San Francisco serious injury lawyers for a free consultation. You may submit the "San Francisco Bay Area Serious Injury Attorneys Case Evaluation Request" and we will contact you to discuss your accident or the incident which caused your injury, provide our case evaluation and recommendations. Our experienced San Francisco personal injury lawyers represent clients who have suffered traumatic brain injury, TBI, paralysis, quadriplegia, paraplegia, other serious spinal cord injuries, catastrophic orthopedic injuries, limb amputation, debilitating internal injuries such as HUS or TTP resulting from Ecoli exposure or Listeriosis, or mesothelioma from exposure to asbestos, birth defects or birth injuries. Our case consultations are entirely free of charge and without any obligation.

Our San Francisco Bay Area Personal Injury Lawyers Discuss the Importance of Identifying All Proper Defendants in Serious Injury Litigation. Our Experienced San Francisco Medical Malpractice Lawyers, Elder Abuse, Drug Defect Attorneys, Food Poisoning Lawyer, and San Francisco Auto Accident Attorneys for Catastrophic Injury Car, Motorcycle, Big Rig and Bicycle Accident Cases Describe Their Sophisticated and Complex Strategies for Identifying All Potential Sources of Insurance And Assets to Assure That Our Clients Will Have the Best Opportunity to Collect Full Compensation for Their Injuries And Damages.

Serious and catastrophic injury cases, again even the "simplest" liability cases, such as may appear to be auto accident, motorcycle accident, big rig truck accident or bicycle accident cases, are always complex by virtue of the San Francisco auto accident lawyer's complex task to demonstrate the elements of the seriously injured client's full measure of general and special damages. All San Francisco bay area serious injury cases, indeed, particularly car, motorcycle, big rig and bicycle accident cases, require determined, aggressive and sometimes highly creative San Francisco serious injury auto accident attorneys to identify all the potential defendants in the litigation. In every case, be it a premises liability, medical malpractice, elder abuse, product liability, drug defect liability or food poisoning case, it must be seen as the San Francisco personal injury lawyer's responsibility to identify proper defendants with sufficient insurance or assets to pay for the client's full measure of general and special damages.

In some cases, such as most product liability and drug product liability cases the defendants may carry tens of millions of dollars of insurance and have assets in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. Physicians, owners of commercial and residential property, or restaurants or local convenience stores which serve contaminated food, may or may not carry sufficient insurance to compensate those who they seriously injure by their negligence. The experience of our California and San Francisco bay area auto accident lawyers is that it is the very rare auto accident case in which the car driver or even big rig truck driver will carry insurance or have the assets sufficient to pay the full measure of damages of the seriously injured auto accident victim. And it is for this reason again that serious and catastrophic injury cases, even those involving the simplest liability case, such as a rear end auto accident, often require the sophisticated, aggressive and often creative representative of the highly experienced San Francisco Bay Area serious injury attorney.

In auto accident cases, the negligent driver of the vehicle who caused our client's damages is almost always inadequately insured and without sufficient wealth to compensate our seriously or catastrophically injured clients for the general and special damages they are entitled to recover under California law. Indeed, it is the experience of our California and San Francisco auto accident lawyers that in many cases the car driver will carry only the statutory minimum, $15,000/$30,000 liability policy and be essentially "judgment proof" in terms of his ability to pay our client's just entitlement to damages. Indeed, this may also be true in even in big rig truck, simi, tractor trailer and 18 wheeler accident cases, where the driver is only required by federal law to carry $750,000 in liability insurance if the load he is carrying is nonhazardous. It must be recognized, that it is often the biggest hurdle the San Francisco auto accident attorney, in car, motorcycle, bicycle and even big rig truck accident cases to have aggressive and creative strategies for identifying all potential sources of recovery.

At the outset, it must be recognized that the complexity associated with what sophisticated San Francisco serious injury lawyers refer to as the "recoverability issue," is not limited to serious and catastrophic injury auto accident cases. In a medical malpractice case, the physician may carry only a few million dollars insurance, and commonly will not have nearly sufficient wealth to fully compensate our client's for their birth injuries, catastrophic internal injuries leaving the clients dependent upon expensive medical care for the remainder of their lives. The restaurant or convenience store responsible for the Ecoli contaminated food which leads to Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome or Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura rendering the client dependent upon expensive medical care for the remainder of his or her life, may be woefully underinsured to compensate the client for the full measure of his or her general and special damages.

A couple of case studies, one involving a medical malpractice case and another involving a motorcycle accident case may serve to illustrate the recoverability issues and solutions adopted by our highly qualified and experienced serious injury lawyers. Below, we will identify more broadly the sophisticated and creative approaches of our San Francisco personal injury lawyers, medical malpractice attorneys, food poisoning lawyer, product liability attorneys, and San Francisco auto accident attorneys to identifying all proper defendants and sources of insurance to pay our seriously injured clients full measure of damages.

In one medical malpractice case, serious injury attorney, Ray Henke, represented 10 AIDS patients whose "medical care" was managed by a physician who, among other horrifying things, insisted that AIDS was not cause by HIV, but imbalances in the "organ frequencies" and "toxin frequencies," and again, among other horrifying things, provided them FDA unapproved "drugs," including one manufactured in the unsterile environs of another physician's pool house sink. The drug was painful to administer intramuscularly and intravenously, so he decided it was a "good idea" to engage a surgeon to install indwelling Hickman catheters into the superior vena cava leading into the patient's hearts. The physicians' insurance companies filed "declaratory relief" lawsuits during the pendency of the cases, claiming that their policies didn't cover intentional or fraudulent conduct, and excluded liability associated with the administration of drugs which were not FDA approved. The physicians also declared bankruptcy.

Serious injury complex medical malpractice attorney, Henke, was required to defend the declaratory relief action, brought by the insurance companies against their insured physicians and Henke's clients, and filed separate non-dischargeabillity lawsuits in bankruptcy court to prevent the physicians from avoiding personal liability for their negligence and fraud. Medical malpractice lawyer, Henke, also prosecuted the suit against the hospital at which the surgeons implanted the Hickman catheters, notwithstanding that the catheter surgery admission histories indicated that the clients were cancer patients admitted for catheterization for infusion of standard chemotherapeutic drugs, and the hospital administration denied any knowledge of the physicians' "below standard" AIDS medical care.

After taking the deposition of the hospital's chief administrator who denied any knowledge of the AIDS medical fraud scheme, medical malpractice attorney Henke located a nurse who was no longer employed by the hospital, but who had served on the immune suppressed unit in the years leading up to the catheter surgeries. While attorneys cannot informally speak to the current employees of a defendant, also represented by the attorneys for the defendant, they can speak to former employees. Henke personally went to her home, and over coffee, identified himself and described his AIDS medical fraud cases, and suit against the defendant physicians and the hospital for which she was once employed. She expressed initial hesitance about the well known "conspiracy of silence" among hospital staff, and the potential ramifications speaking out could have upon her nursing career, expressing her concern that attorney Henke would need to find other nurses or hospital staff willing to acknowledge the truth. Attorney Henke promised his good nurse that he would, if she would just give him the insight for his interrogation of the ISU nursing staff. She then told medical malpractice attorney, Henke, the most horrifying story of outrageous physician conduct and hospital administration failures to protect the health and welfare of their patients. Perhaps most horrifying was the particular defendant physician's "treatment" of his client's pneumocistis carinii pneumonia with "high dose Vitamin C" which this nurse tearfully recounted she was required to hang into the AIDS patients IVs instead of the standard of care antibiotics highly effective in curing this most common and deadly of AIDS opportunistic diseases. She described how all the nurses on the ISU unit vehemently and continuously complained to the hospital administrators about this physician's wildly off standard AIDS "treatments," although not the particular FDA unapproved AIDS "cure" used on attorney Henke's clients. She even described how some of the nurses were telling the patients that this physician would kill them, and that they needed to transfer to another hospital, a very candid admission of breach of hospital nursing "etiquette" but as attorney Henke listened to this story what most impressed him was that indeed, the nurses were the heroes and heroines in this horrifying medical and hospital tragedy. Medical and hospital malpractice attorney, Henke, asked the nurse to identify one other nurse who she felt would be the most likely to break with the hospital's conspiracy of silence, and she identified the one who was perhaps the most vehement in her complaints to the hospital administration and in her efforts to protect the patients from their physician. Medical and hospital malpractice attorney, Henke, then noticed the depositions of all of the hospital's nurses who served on its Immune Suppressed Unit, ISU, during the years leading up to Henke's client's Hickman catheterization. He also insisted that the particular nurse identified as the most ardent AIDS patient advocate be presented for deposition first to avoid the specter than another nurse might hold to the hospital line, and render the other nurses less able to contradict the first nurse. In the deposition, attorney Henke advised her at the outset that he has spoken to the nurse who had left the hospital's employ and showed her the nurses' sworn statement, which the hospital's attorneys initially attempted to prevent her from reviewing, characterizing the nurse as a disaffected former nurse angry at the hospital, demanding that Henke leave the deposition room while the defense attorneys and hospital "risk manager" met privately with the nurse. The hospital's attorneys attempted to then switch the order of the nurses depositions on the pretext that the particular nurse was too emotionally upset to continue. Henke refused, and returning to the deposition, the hospital nurse broke down tearfully and recounted over the hospital attorneys' repeated objections, that the defendant physician was referred to on the ISU unit as a "quack," she detailed what she referred to as the physician's complete failure to use any of the generally accepted standard of care AIDS therapies used by the legitimate AIDS physicians with patients on the ward, acknowledging also that she repeatedly complained through every hospital administration channel open to her about the physician's refusal to adhere to the standards of AIDS medicine and how he was endangering all of his hospitalized AIDS patients. And then, as medical malpractice and hospital negligence attorney, Ray Henke, gently interrogated each of the other dozen nurses who served on the hospital's ISU unit in the years leading up to his client's Hickman catheter surgeries, each acknowledge the wild below standard medical "treatment" afforded by the defendant "quack" AIDS physician on the ISU unit and their multiple complaints to the hospital administration.

For purposes of this discussion, please recall that medical malpractice attorney, Henke's objective was to assure that his clients would receive adequate compensation and punitive damages, damages to set examples of those involved in this horrifying AIDS medical fraud to prevent them or any others from similarly setting out to defraud AIDS patients or others vulnerable to physician fraud. In order to present the liability case against the hospital, medical malpractice attorney, Henke, called a former administrator of Cedars Sinai hospital who described the responsibilities of hospital administrators to invoke peer review committees and in egregious cases such as this, revoke or conditionally revoke the hospital staff privileges of the physician pending peer review. The hospital negligence expert confirmed that this hospital's failure to revoke the physician's staff privileges and failure even to refer him for hospital peer review, violated hospital administration standards of care and responsibility. Having established that the hospital should have revoked the physician's staff privileges, causation was established by the fact that if his privileges had been properly revoked he could not have admitted Henke's clients to surgery for implantation of the Hickman catheters. In order to pursue the case against the hospital for punitive damages, medical and hospital attorney, Henke, also sued the hospital for conspiracy to defraud his clients based on the hospital administrations knowledge that the physician participated in nothing but fraudulent practice, and intentionally turned a blind eye to what it should have assumed was the fraudulent purposes of the Hickman catheter surgeries despite the false patient histories and purported legitimate indications for the surgeries.

Medical and hospital malpractice attorney, Ray Henke, tried 5 of his clients cases against the physician, surgeon and hospital in a 4 month trial obtaining a multimillion dollar jury verdict for his clients, including a $1.9 million dollar punitive damage jury verdict against the hospital. Attorney Henke also succeeded in the bankruptcy court in obtaining a non-dischargeabillity summary judgment against the AIDS fraud physician based on the federal judge's determination that the evidence presented demonstrated that the doctor had committed fraud upon Henke's clients "as a matter of law." Attorney, Henke, continued to defend the declaratory relief lawsuit filed by the physician's insurance company, which the insurance company ultimately dismissed, agreeing to pay the clients' full compensatory damages, with interest from the date of the judgment.

As an example now of a serious injury auto accident case, to illustrate how the creativity of experienced and qualified San Francisco auto accident lawyers might turn a case involving woefully inadequate liability insurance into a case in which insurance is identified fully adequate to compensate the client for his injuries is prepared and presented, please consider California auto accident attorney, Ray Henke, approach to one motorcycle accident case.

The case involved a motorcyclist who had "split lanes" at an intersection between cars in two adjoining left turn lanes. The resulting accident resulted in his loss of the lower part of one leg and a broken clavicle. The defense attorneys claimed that the motorcyclist was responsible for the accident for splitting lanes and attempting to "jump out" into the intersection ahead of the two left turning cars. Serious injury auto accident lawyer, Ray Henke, took the deposition of the police officer who investigated the accident, and by his interrogation elicited the police officer's testimony that splitting lanes, even splitting lanes between two left turning cars is "not illegal" in California. Serious injury auto accident lawyer also elicited from the officer during his interrogation that the motorcyclists having split lanes was not a "contributing factor" in the accident.

The defendant auto driver had only statutory minimum liability coverage, but our serious injury auto accident lawyers' investigation revealed that the driver was on his way from home to work. Under California law, accidents occurring while "communing" to work do not result in the employer's responsibility, but our serious injury auto accident lawyers were able to establish that the defendant motorist was driving a company vehicle, carrying tools essential to carry out his work responsibilities. We then named the employer as a defendant. The employer had a million dollar liability policy and we were able to discover that it also had an applicable multimillion dollar excess liability policy. At the first settlement conference, within a year of the motorcyclist first approaching us, attorney Henke presented to the settlement judge the relevant portions of the police officer's deposition, leading the settlement judge to state at the outset of the settlement conference his quick conclusion that the case was a liability case with no contributory fault on the part of the motorcyclist. The client received a multimillion dollar settlement.

Please understand, as the California State Bar requires us to make clear, that the above jury verdicts and settlements were obtained based on the facts of the particular cases, and that results will vary according the facts of each particular case.

Indeed, our California and San Francisco personal injury lawyers would add, specifically with regard to the above discussion, that in many cases, despite the most concerted and creative efforts of sophisticated San Francisco medical malpractice lawyers or San Francisco auto accident lawyers or good personal injury lawyers representing the seriously injured in food poisoning, product liability, premises liability and every other type of case, that sometimes sufficient insurance and assets will not be able to be identified sufficient to adequately compensate the client. What we would urge though is that the client is best served by experienced San Francisco serious injury attorneys specifically knowledgeable and with good strategies for identifying all properly responsible defendants to access the insurance and assets sufficient to obtain full compensation for their clients.

Our California and San Francisco big rig truck accident lawyers have prepared a separate page discussing the common causes of semi, tractor trailer, 18 wheeler and other commercial large truck accidents. Our big rig truck accident lawyers also discuss in detail the "recoverability" hurdle in commercial large truck accident cases. Just briefly, big rig truck accident cases often result in serious and catastrophic injuries, most obviously because the simis, tractor trailers and 18 wheelers and other commercial large trucks, unloaded and loaded are from 3 to 30 times greater in weight, and the energy transfer to the smaller car is so much more substantial. Our California and San Francisco big rig truck accident lawyers explain the common causes of commercial large truck accidents, deriving from a panoply of accident scenarios, from the truck driver's following to closely given the greater distance the driver must allow to stop the truck to avoid a rear end accident to the factors resulting in jackknifing, where the trailer moves out from behind the truck to the side, sometimes causing the truck to flip and roll. Our California and San Francisco big rig truck accident lawyers explain that jackknife accidents can occur from the truck driver's locking up his brakes, or from an improperly secured load, causing the load to shift in a turn or quick lane change.

Specifically because commercial large truck accidents result so commonly in serious and catastrophic injuries, it is essential that experienced San Francisco big rig truck accident lawyers consider from the outset that they must identify all potentially liable defendants with the insurance and assets sufficient to compensate their clients for their general and special damages. Commercial large truck drivers carrying nonhazardous loads are required by federal law only to carry $750,000 in liability insurance, woefully inadequate to cover the many millions of dollars of general and special damages the seriously or catastrophically injured client is reasonably entitled to recover under California law. In big rig truck accidents involving semi trucks, tractor trailers, 18 wheelers and other large commercial trucks, it is common to find that the San Francisco big rig truck accident lawyer's client has suffered traumatic brain injury, paralysis, quadriplegia, paraplegia and other serious spinal cord injuries, debilitating internal injury, catastrophic orthopedic injury, often requiring a lifetime of medical expense, the client's also deprived of their ability to earn a living in the professions or trades they trained for or developed proficiency as the result of many years of employment in their chosen professions.

The experienced San Francisco big rig truck accident lawyer will be knowledgeable about the state and federal statutes regulating interstate and intrastate trucking, specifying, as examples, the number of hours truckers may drive between 8 hour rest periods, the weights of the loads they are permitted to carry, and regulations governing the proper securing of loads. The shippers and trucking companies will often not "employ" the truckers, but will hire them as "independent contractors" to avoid liability for the injuries their trucker's may cause in accidents. But the experienced San Francisco big rig truck accident lawyer will be knowledgeable about the "theories of liability" under which the shippers or trucking companies can be held liable, such as "negligent entrustment" and "negligent supervision." Competent San Francisco big rig truck accident lawyers will also be knowledgeable about the records that can be used to establish the liability of the shipper or trucking company. The drivers are charged by federal and California law to maintain daily logs of their hours driving and time off periods which they are responsible to provide to all trucking companies which employ them. The companies will maintain records with regard to the drivers they hire, which may include the evidence or the absence of the evidence that the competent San Francisco big rig truck accident lawyer will obtain with regard to the trucker's driving history, history of traffic violations, accidents, DUIs, drug and alcohol abuse. And these, among other records, and testimony of the shipper or trucking company officers and employees is the evidence the experienced San Francisco big rig truck accident lawyer will use to establish the liability of the trucking company or shipper, which commonly carry much larger liability insurance policies than the driver, and have much greater assets against which a judgment in the case can be asserted.

In simple auto accidents, personal injury lawyer, Ray Henke, is at the forefront in creatively advocating that auto accident lawyers consider the importance of cell phone evidence both in establishing liability in the contested liability auto accident case, and in overcoming the recoverability hurdle in identifying uncovering employer liability for accidents. Auto accident lawyer, Ray Henke, has prepared an extensive scientific review article describing the abundant and consistent epidemiological literature and controlled experimental studies demonstrating that motorists who engage in cell conversation are DUI level driving impaired and 4 times more likely to cause an accident. The evidence can be used to establish liability in a contested liability case. Equally important for the discussion above, the defendant driver's cell phone records can be used to establish employer vicarious liability for the accident and injuries under "respondeat superior" theory.

In the later respect, our personal injury lawyer, Ray Henke, explains that there is currently an epidemic of driving under the influence of cell conversation in the United States, one in ten motorists on our American streets and highways at any given moment in time, is actively involved in cell conversation. NOPUS, NHTSA, December 2005. Many of these motorists use their commuting time to make business calls, making calls to their employer, colleagues or secretary or to clients, or prospective clients, either to discuss sales or set appointments for meetings, or for a panoply of other business purposes. The San Francisco serious injury auto accident lawyer has at his disposal the right to compel the production of the defendant auto driver's cell phone records, and to depose the driver to determine the purpose of the call, to whom the call was made, what the driver's relationship is with the other party to the call, to demonstrate that the call was made "in the course and scope of the client's employment." Where this can be done, again, liability can be asserted against the employer for the negligence of the employee under "respondeat superior" theory, and the employer held liable for the injuries cause by his employee's negligence.

In summary, even in what may seem to the seriously injured client to be a simple "open and shut" case, the truth is that such cases may often require highly sophisticated, knowledgeable and creative San Francisco personal injury lawyers, highly experienced in the prosecution of complex, serious and catastrophic injury litigation. As our California and San Francisco serious injury lawyers, medical malpractice attorneys and San Francisco auto accident and big rig truck accident lawyers have endeavored to explain here and on the "Practice Areas" pages, and "Serious and Catastrophic Injury Lawyers" page, even the "simplest" of these serious injury cases involve all the complexities involved in adequately preparing and presenting the client's general and special damages. We also hope that our California and San Francisco serious injury lawyers have provided some insight into the complexities involved in surmounting the "recoverability" issue, even it what may appear to be the simplest liability cases, to identify all properly liable defendants with insurance or assets sufficient to fully compensate the client for his serious injuries.

We welcome you to avail our San Francisco personal injury attorneys invitation to describe your serious injury auto accident or medical malpractice or product liability or drug defect or premises liability, slip and fall, or food poisoning or elder abuse case to us, and permit us to provide our free case consultation. You may submit the e-mail "Case Evaluation Request" and one of our highly experienced San Francisco personal injury lawyers specifically knowledgeable in the particular practice area will contact you to discuss the facts or your case, your injuries, prognosis, and economic damages, and provide our case evaluation and recommendations. Again, our case consultations are entirely free of charge and without obligation.

Our California and San Francisco Bay Area medical malpractice lawyers describe our approach in physician and hospital negligence cases, including in obstetrical malpractice and perinatal malpractice cases involving birth injuries, cerebral palsy and Erbs brachial plexus palsy.

Our California and San Francisco medical malpractice and hospital negligence lawyers describe more fully on our "Medical Malpractice Lawyers" page our approach to physician and hospital negligence cases. Above we discussed in some detail, by way of example, the presentation of one complex medical malpractice case involving both physician and hospital negligence.

Medical negligence cases are highly complex requiring sophisticated and experienced medical malpractice lawyers. The medical malpractice lawyers must be conversant with the scientific method and able to read and understand medical literature, medical concepts, anatomy, understand functions of the organs or aspects of the human anatomy involved in the particular case; which indeed vary widely from case to case, commonly requiring the California or San Francisco medical malpractice lawyer to learn new medical principles to understand the bases for applicable medical standards of care, causation issues, and implications of the resulting medical injuries.

Medical malpractice cases also all require the presentation of expert testimony and sometimes teams of experts to establish that the physician "fell below the applicable medical standards of care" in his treatment of the plaintiff. As noted above, in one medical malpractice case involving AIDS medical fraud, Henke's experts included Luc Montagner, the discoverer of HIV and head of France's National AIDS Laboratories, Michael Gotlieb, the discoverer of AIDS and cofounder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, AMFAR, Don Francis, the epidemiologist who headed up the CDC's first AIDS task force and discovered that AIDS was a sexually transmitted disease, and a dozen others of the most highly respected AIDS scientists and medical doctors in the world.

Our California and San Francisco medical malpractice lawyers have a particular interest in obstetrical malpractice cases in which the child suffers birth injuries, including brain injury, such as cerebral palsy, or permanent Erbs palsy or brachial plexus injury. You may consider our obstetrical malpractice and birth injury page by putting your cursor over medical malpractice in the "Practice Areas" menu.

Medical malpractice and drug product liability lawyer, Ray Henke has also been widely involved in birth defect litigation. One such case is referred to under "Recent Victories" in the left column of the page.

In California the physicians and medical insurance lobbies in 1970 and again in 1975 were able to obtain passage of some of the most detrimental medical malpractice tort reform legislation, commonly referred to as the MICRA statutes. These statutes severely limit the medical malpractice cases which can practically be prosecuted in the State of California. One statute provides a $250,000 limitation on general damages recoverable in a medical malpractice case, so that if in minor surgery the physician renders the patient quadriplegic or paraplegic or brain damaged, he cannot recover more than $250,000 in general damages. Victims of medical malpractice can still recover fully for their economic damages, their past and future medical expenses and past and future lost earnings, but in a paraplegia case, where the victim of the physician's malpractice is able to return to his work as a novel writer or computer programmer, unfortunately the effect of the statutes may be to reduce his potential recovery very unfairly. Attorneys fees in a medical malpractice case are also severely limited, despite the special expertise that a medical malpractice lawyer must bring to the litigation, and despite the enormous case costs which medical malpractice attorneys must invest in the litigation. The purpose of the litigation, lobbied for intensely by the physicians and medical insurance lobbies was again to make the litigation as unprofitable as possible to further restrict the availability of medical malpractice lawyers for the majority of legitimate malpractice cases involving clear physician, hospital and other health care provider negligence which by virtue of the $250,000 cap on general damages and limitation on attorneys fees render the cases unprofitable considering the time and investment that a medical malpractice attorney must devote to competently prosecute medical malpractice litigation.

It is for the foregoing reasons that our California and San Francisco medical malpractice lawyers must be extremely selective in our intake policies for medical and hospital negligence cases. We must recognize that the client will be limited to $250,000 in general damages, and so we unfortunately must look very carefully at each case to determine whether the expenses of the litigation can be justified by permanent injuries resulting from the malpractice that will either justify an award of substantial past and future medical expense or substantial award for past and future loss of earnings. This is not an analysis that the victim of medical or hospital malpractice should attempt on his own, and under no circumstances should the victim of medical malpractice be dissuaded from pursuing his or her case based on our California and San Francisco medical malpractice attorneys providing this information with regard to the MICRA statutes. Instead, what the victim of medical malpractice should do is contact qualified and experienced California and San Francisco medical malpractice lawyers knowledgeable about the preparation and presentation of special damages claims in serious injury litigation, and permit the lawyers to provide their assessments of the viability of the medical malpractice case; indeed, if one even more than one medical malpractice lawyer "rejects" the case, the potential client should continue to seek second, third and fourth opinions.

Our California and San Francisco medical malpractice lawyers are serious injury attorneys with extensive experience in preparing and presenting economic damages, past and future medical expense and past and future loss of earnings claims. Our serious injury lawyers have prepared a "Catastrophic and Serious Injury Lawyers" page in which we discuss the measure of special economic damages and our approach to the presentation such damages.

You are welcome to review our more complete discussion of our credentials and approach as California and San Francisco medical malpractice lawyers on our separate page devoted specifically to medical malpractice litigation, or to our page devoted to obstetrical malpractice and birth injury litigation.

Please feel welcome to contact us with regard to your medical or hospital negligence case arising in San Francisco, the Bay Area or any other county in Northern or Southern California. Our California and San Francisco bay area medical malpractice lawyers will be pleased to discuss the facts of your case, your injuries and prognosis, your past and future anticipated medical expenses and anticipated earnings losses, and will provide our initial impressions, case evaluation and recommendations entirely free of any charge or obligation.

Our California and San Francisco Bay Area Food Poisoning Lawyers Discuss Their Credentials in Food Poisoning Litigation, and Particular Interest in Ecoli HUS and TTP cases, Listeria, Botulism, Campylobacter, Norovirus, Salmonella and Shigella cases and Food Poisoning Outbreak Litigation.

Food and drug lawyer, Ray Henke, has joined with food poisoning attorney, Nick Allis, in their consideration of Ecoli HUS and TTP cases, Listeria, Botulism, Campylobacter, Norovirus, Salmonella and Shigella litigation. We have prepared a separate general "Food Poisoning Lawyers" page and two additional pages, one entitled Ecoli HUS lawyers and the other Listeria lawyers. At the time this page is being drafted we have yet to prepare separate pages to discuss Botulism, Campylobacter, Norovirus, Salmonella or Shigella litigation. Please place your cursor over "Food Poisoning Lawyers" in the "Practice Areas" menu where all our most current individual food poisoning attorney pages should be linked.

In any San Francisco bay area food poisoning case, the client should seek out competent and experienced California and San Francisco food poisoning lawyers appropriately qualified to prosecute this complex litigation. Attorney, Henke's qualifications are discussed extensively above and on the adjoining panels of this page. Henke has joined with nationally acclaimed food poisoning lawyer, Nick Allis, prosecution of Ecoli HUS and TTP cases, and Listeria, Botulism, Campylobacter, Norovirus, Salmonella or Shigella litigation. Mr. Allis obtained is BA degree from Yale and then his juris doctorate degree from Georgetown Law School. He has spent the last several years of his 30 year career as a trial lawyer in the most complex of medical cases involved specifically in food poisoning litigation. His entire career has been spent in highly complex medical litigation and pharmaceutical product liability litigation through which he has prepared himself for scientific and medical discipline required for the prosecution of food poisoning litigation. He is extensive trained and educated in epidemiology and medical science. As a part of his educational process he has extensively studied the food poisoning literature generally on E coli, Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, HUS, as well as Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, TTP, Listeria and Listeriosis Botulism, Campylobacter, Norovirus, Salmonella and Shigella. As an example of his devotion to learning every aspect of food poisoning litigation "from the bottom up" he took the course of study and passed the test to become a "Certified Food Manager." Mr. Allis most recently achieved a landmark multimillion dollar settlement in an Ecoli HUS case on the eve of the trial during a settlement conference in which he presented the conclusions of his world class experts and a "PowerPoint slide presentation" that an attorney employee had spent a month preparing. The product was that Mr. Allis achieved one of the largest settlements ever obtained in an individual E coli HUS case. It was solely because of Mr. Allis' reputation as a trial lawyer, his specific legal concentration in food poisening litigation and his devotion to the preparation this E. coli case, that he was able to obtain this superior result for his client.

If you have suffered serious food poisoning illness in the San Francisco bay area, or in any other county in the State of California, you are welcome to contact us for a free attorney consultation. You may submit the "Food Poisoning Lawyers Case Evaluation Request" and attorney Nick Allis will contact you to discuss the facts or your case, the nature of your illness and resulting permanent injuries, your general and special damages. On the basis of the interview, food poisoning attorney, Nick Allis will provide you his initial impressions, case evaluation and recommendations.

Our California and San Francisco Bay Area Elder Abuse Lawyers Discuss Elder Neglect and Abandonment, Physical Abuse and Psychological Abuse by Retirement or Nursing Home Staff, Elder Neglect and Abandonment, and Elder Financial Abuse.

Our California and San Francisco elder abuse lawyers have prepared a separate page on this site discussing in detail our credentials and approach to senior physical and psychological abuse litigation commonly involving abuse by nursing or attendant staff of nursing homes, convalescent centers and retirement homes. Briefly, elder neglect involves the failure of a nursing home or other senior facility, having undertaken the duty of care for the elderly person, to use reasonable care to provide for the senior's medical and mental health care, personal hygiene, and to protect the senior from the hazards to his or her health and safety. Our California and San Francisco elder abuse lawyers identify as a separate category of elder abuse, senior abandonment, which involves and intentional or willful failure of the convalescent center or nursing facility or retirement home to care for the elder.

Elder physical abuse is a category of elder abuse which our California and San Francisco bay area elder abuse lawyers would define as intentional physical abuse by nursing home, senior convalescent center or retirement home staff, which can take a number of forms from punching, slapping or beatings, to uncalled for physical restraint or the denial of food or water, and sometimes may include sexual abuse.

Elder psychological abuse is a category of elder abuse which our California and San Francisco elder abuse attorneys would categorize as emotional abuse intentionally or willfully inflicted by employees of a nursing home or retirement or convalescent facility for the elderly. Psychological abuse might take the form of verbal assaults or threats or other types of intimidation calculated to instill fear or humiliation or isolation of the senior or other conduct which results in sensory or social deprivation.

Elder financial abuse generally involves the misuse of the elder's money through fraud or overreaching, or theft of the senior's properly, often misuse of a fiduciary relationship by guardians, conservators, lawyers, persons with power of attorney, accountants, investment advisors, real estate brokers, stock brokers, con artists, door to door or fly by night telemarketing schemes, or those with a particular relationship of trust including the senior's caregivers which may be nursing home or retirement home administrators or their employees or health care professionals. Unfortunately, those responsible for elder financial abuse may also include family members who influence the senior to change the terms of his or her will, or divert property or money or assets of the elder.

If you believe that you or a loved one has been the victim of elder abuse, elder neglect or abandonment, elder physical or psychological abuse or financial abuse, you are welcome to contact our San Francisco bay area elder abuse lawyers for a free consultation. Submit the "Case Evaluation Request" and one of our San Francisco bay area senior abuse lawyers will contact you, discuss the facts of your abuse or the abuse of your loved one, will provide his initial impressions, case evaluation and recommendations.

San Francisco Traumatic Brain Injury TBI Lawyers and Paralysis, Quadriplegia, Paraplegia, and Serious Spinal Cord Injury Lawyers Serving the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern and Southern California.

Traumatic brain injury, TBI, and serious spinal cord injury often resulting in paralysis, can be caused by any of the types of negligence described in our practice areas, but are statistically most commonly associated with auto accidents and falls. Our California and San Francisco Bay Area personal injury lawyers describe on our "Practice Areas" pages our specific credentials as serious injury car, motorcycle, bicycle and big rig truck accident lawyers, premises liability, slip and fall attorneys for the seriously or catastrophically injured, and on separate pages we describe also our expertise as medical malpractice lawyers and product liability attorneys, and our expertise in each of the specific areas of our practice. Your are invited to consider our particular practice areas pages most relevant to the specific negligence or liability involved in your particular case.

We have a particular legal interest specifically in traumatic brain injury cases and serious spinal cord injury cases. Our California and San Francisco serious injury lawyers have created specific pages devoted entirely to these subjects. Please consider our "Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyers" page and our "Paralysis Spinal Cord Injury Attorneys" page identified in our "Practice Areas" menu.

Our California and San Francisco trial lawyers concentrate specifically on serious and catastrophic injury litigation, including, in particular, traumatic brain injury cases and paralysis, quadriplegia, paraplegia and other serious spinal cord injury cases. Our California and San Francisco Bay Area serious injury lawyers have prepared another relevant page for those who have suffered traumatic brain injury or serious spinal cord injury, entitled "Serious and Catastrophic Injury Lawyers." Our San Francisco traumatic brain injury lawyers and paralysis attorneys encourage you to review that page to learn about the measures of general and special damages to which the seriously or catastrophically injured client is entitled to recover under California law, and our sophisticated and highly experienced California and San Francisco serious injury lawyers' approach to preparing and presenting general and special damages specifically in serious and catastrophic injury cases.

Indeed, as our California and San Francisco Bay Area serious injury lawyers explain, while the liability in an auto accident case may be simple, or indeed obvious, as in a rear end accident, the presentation of damages in a serious injury accident case is always complex and requires highly competent serious injury trial lawyers extensively experienced in the trial of serious and catastrophic injury cases to properly prepare and present the seriously injured client's general damages, and special damages, including past and future medical expense and past and future loss of earnings or earning capacity. Again we encourage you to consider our "Serious & Catastrophic Injury Lawyers" page.

In traumatic brain injury cases and serious spinal cord injury cases, as our highly experienced California and San Francisco serious injury trial lawyers explain that commonly the most difficult problem the traumatic brain injury attorneys and paralysis lawyers will need to surmount is the "recoverability" issue. As explained more fully above in our discussion of auto accident litigation, the main challenge of the sophisticated and experienced San Francisco serious injury auto accident lawyer may be to identify sources of insurance and assets sufficient to fully compensate the seriously or catastrophically injured client for the full measure of his general and special damages. In auto accident cases, the defendant motorist will commonly be woefully underinsured and have not nearly the wealth or assets to compensate the plaintiff for his damages. This is true even in big rig truck accident cases where the drivers are required only to carry $750,000 in liability insurance. We discuss above and on our auto accident lawyers, motorcycle accident lawyers, and big rig truck accident attorneys pages, the variety of aggressive and creative means available to our sophisticated California and San Francisco serious injury lawyers to identify all proper defendants who may be brought in to auto accident litigation to assure that our clients have the very best opportunity to receive full compensation for their full measure of damages.

Our California and San Francisco Bay Area Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyers Discuss Our Highly Qualified and Experienced Attorneys' Approach to Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation.

For a more complete discussion of traumatic brain injury and our California and San Francisco trial lawyers experience and approach to TBI cases, please consult our "Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyers" page identified in our "Practice Areas" menu. If you suffered your traumatic brain injury as the result of an auto accident or fall on commercial or residential premises or facilities, please consult our "auto accident lawyers" and "premises liability attorneys" pages. Please also consider our "Serious & Catastrophic Injury Lawyers" page, at which our California and San Francisco serious injury lawyers discuss the measure of damages under California law and the complexities associated with the preparation and presentation of the general and special economic damages of the seriously injured client. We also discuss the importance of San Francisco serious injury trial attorneys to consider the "recoverability" issue early on in the litigation to agressively establish the liability of all properly named defendants to maximise the insurance and assets that will be available to fully compensate the seriously injured client for the full measure of his general and special damages.

Briefly, traumatic brain injury, or TBI, usually refers to a closed head injury caused by external impact the the head, as may occur in an auto accident, fall or other accident in which there is head impact, but TBI can also result from quick acceleration of the head followed by quick decelleration, as commonly will occur in rear end auto accidents where the driver or passenger is restrained by a seat belt. As our California and San Francisco traumatic brain injury lawyers explain, this can occur as the result of diffuse axonal shearing from rotational acceleration and then deceleration, resulting a sliding of layers of the brain because of disparity in the density of the layers. As our California and San Francisco TBI attorneys discuss, there is a third mechanism, commonly referred to as "cavitation" in which microscopic bubbles form as the result of alteration in pressure in the brain from the rapid movement of the brain, and then when the brain moves back, the microscopic bubbles burst causing brain damage.

From our perspective as San Francisco TBI lawyers, all traumatic brain injury is serious, and our experience is that this is also the perspective of all those who have suffered a traumatic brain injury, but the discipline of medicine has seen fit to caracterize TBI into mild, moderate and severe, so without in any way discounting the seriousness of all brain injury, our San Francisco traumatic brain injury lawyers use the terms assigned to the levels of serious traumatic brain injury as the terms have been defined by the discipline of medicine.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) states: "A person with a mild TBI may remain conscious or may experience a loss of consciousness for a few seconds or minutes. Other symptoms of mild TBI include headache, confusion, lightheadedness, dizziness, blurred vision or tired eyes, ringing in the ears, bad taste in the mouth, fatigue or lethargy, a change in sleep patterns, behavioral or mood changes, and trouble with memory, concentration, attention, or thinking." The Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee of the Head Injury Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group of the American Congress of Rehabilitative Medicine defines "mild TBI" as follows: "A patient with mild traumatic brain injury is a person who has had a traumatically induced physiological disruption of brain function, as manifest by at least one of the following: (1) any period of loss of consciousness; (2) any loss of memory for events immediately before or after the accident; (3) focal neurological deficits that may or may not be transient, but where the severity the injury does not exceed the following: (a) post traumatic amnesia not greater than 24 hours; (b) after thirty minutes, an initial Glasgow Coma Scale of 13 to 15, or (c) loss of consciousness of approximately 30 minutes or less.

Those categorized by moderate and severe traumatic brain injury may have sustained a concussion or hemorrhage or more enduring loss of consciousness. Those who sustain skull fractures are commonly diagnosed with moderate or severe TBI, and those who are rendered comatose certainly have suffered severe TBI although coma is not essential to the diagnosis of severe traumatic brain injury. Often diagnostic technology such as CT scans or MRI scans of the brain can be useful in identifying contusion or brain swelling, edema, substantiating more serious brain injury, and skull x-rays and EEG studies are often useful in making the diagnosis. In addition to the Glasgow Coma Scale referred to above, useful in diagnosis, the Rancho Los Amigos Cognitive Scale is used both to evaluate levels of function and to evaluated the rehabilitative progress of the TBI patient. Finally, neruopsychological evaluation may be very useful in TBI diagnosis because it does not depend upon a standardized scale but recognizes the individuality of the patient, evaluating, inter alia, his physical, mental and personality changes from before the incident which resulted in his traumatic brain injury.

In presenting the TBI case, our San Francisco traumatic brain injury lawyers will present qualified "opinion testimony" of the plaintiff's treating physicians and those involved in his rehabilitation, an expert neurosurgeon or neurologist, in every case a neuropsychologist. In some cases a psychiatrist, physical therapist or speech pathologist may be required depending upon the specific manifestation of the plaintiff's brain injury. These experts will serve the function first demonstrate that the plaintiff suffered a traumatic brain injury resulting from the incident upon which liability in the case was based, such as an impact to the head or coup contre-coup brain injury sustained in an auto accident or fall; and then to describe the nature and extent of the plaintiff's injuries. The foundation for this testimony will be these experts review of the medical records, the scientific literature upon which they rely, and percipient testimony, such as descriptions of changes in the plaintiff's behavior following the incident from family members and friends.

For our California and San Francisco serious injury lawyers specific discussion of the measure of damages recoverable in traumatic brain injury cases, to appreciate the complexity of the proper presentation of the client's general and special damages founded in part upon the evidence of the nature and extent of the client's traumatic brain injury, because of the length of the necessary discussion, our San Francisco traumatic brain injury lawyers invite you to consult our "Serious & Catastrophic Injury Lawyers" page.

Our San Francisco Bay Area Spinal Cord Injury Lawyers Discuss our Attorneys Approach to Paralysis, Quadriplegia, and Other Serious Spinal Cord Injury Cases

Because our California and San Francisco paralysis and serious spinal cord injury lawyers have broad knowledge of the medical issues, and experience in the presentation of catasrophic injury general and special damages in quadriplegia and paraplegia cases, we have created a separate "Paralysis & Spinal Cord Injury Attorneys" page, which we invite you to consider for a more full discussion.

Paralysis, including quadriplegia and paraplegia can result from any insult to the spinal cord, but most commonly spinal cord injury will occur in auto accidents or falls. Our San Francisco bay area paralysis and spinal cord injury attorneys are also sophisticated serious injury auto accident lawyers, and you are invited to consider our credentials and experience specifically as serious injury car and motorcycle accident attorneys, big rig truck accident lawyers and bicycle accident attorneys, described also on separate pages listed in our "Practice Areas" menu. Our San Francisco serious spinal cord injury lawyers are also sophisticated premises liability lawyers for serious injury slip and fall cases. In some cases spinal cord injury may occur as the result of other negligent or intentional acts or a defective product, or medical malpractice or elder abuse, as examples, and you are also encouraged to view the subject matter pages describing our credentials as serious injury attorneys in the practice area relevant to the facts of your particular case. Our general trial lawyer credentials are discussed briefly above and in the right column of this page.

Our San Francisco Bay Area paralysis and serious spinal cord injury lawyers also urge you to consider our approach to the preparation and presentation of general and special damages, past and future medical expense and past and future earnings losses, because the bottom line is that the money damages that the paralyized client recovers will indeed be a function of the sophisticated preparation, and credible testimony of the team of damage experts including expert medical specialists, professional "Day in the Life" documentary filmmakers, "life care planners," vocational rehabilitation experts and forensic economists that your experienced San Franscisco serious injury attorney is capable of assembling. Indeed, regardless of the "simplicity" of the liability facts involved in an auto accident or motorcycle or bicycle accident, or big rig truck accident, or "slip and fall" due to surface defect or failure of maintenance, the presentation of quadriplegia, paraplegia and other serious spinal cord injury cases is always complex and requires highly experienced and sophisticated San Francisco paralysis lawyers. For this reason we also invite you to consider our "Catastrophic Injury Lawyers" page, listed at the top of our "Practice Areas" menu.

As discussed above one of the biggest hurdles the experienced San Francisco paralysis lawyer will face in serious spnal cord injury auto accident litigation in particular is that the defendant motorist will almost always carry woefully inadequate liability insurance to pay even a small fraction of the general and special damages to which the client suffering quadriplegia or paraplegia is entitled to recover under California law. Our California and San Francisco serious injury trial lawyers have developed a number of agressive and creative strategies for identifying all potentially liable defendants, including the driver's employer, who may be held directly liable or vicariously liable for the injuries sustained by our clients. Again you may consider our aggressive and creative approaches to overcoming this common "recoverability issue" also discussed on our "Catastrophic Injury Lawyers" page.

Our San Francisco Paralysis Lawyers Discuss The "Anatomy" of a Spinal Cord Injury. Attorneys Representing Clients Who Sustain Serious Spinal Cord Injury Resulting in Quadriplegia and Paraplegia, Must Understand The Medicine as Surely As They Must Understand the Unique Legal Strategies for the Presentation of Serious Spinal Cord Injury Cases.

The spinal cord consists of a bundle of nerves that run from the base of the brain to the lower back, commonly referred to by physicians as the cervical, thoracic, lumbar and sacral spine, from top to bottom, identified by the vertebral number. The vertebrae are the bony structures surrounding the spinal cord. Sometimes, in lay terms, the vertebrae are called the "backbone," and physicians will sometimes describe the spinal anatomy to their patients in terms of the upper, middle and lower back.

The spinal cord, this bundle of nerves, is responsible for our movement and sensation, allowing our brains to manipulate our limbs and muscules, permitting us to walk, grasp objects, and hold our newborn baby or grandchildren in our arms. This wonderful bundle of nerves sends back to our brains the sensation of touch, the tactile information about the qualities of the objects we touch, like the feel of husband's or wife's hair, or the gentle embrace of our mother or father.

When the spinal vertebrae are broken or fractured, as in the most common occurs leading to serious spinal cord injury, our spinal cord, this bundle of nerves, will sometimes be cut or partially cut or damaged, and the result in terms of our ability to move our musculature including our limbs and our ability to sense tactile sensation will be impaired. The result of the impairment will be a function of the location of the spinal injury, meaning the vertebral level of the damage and whether the impairment of function and sensation is "complete" or "partial."

"Paraplegia" is caused by damage to the spinal cord at the location of the thoracic, lumbar or sacral vertebrae, which and results in loss of motor function and sensation in the lower areas of the body, usually from the waist down, and loss of use of the lower extremities, depriving the paraplegic of his ability to walk and despite the paraplegic's courage and resilience, still the loss of capacity to enjoy many of the activities he or she most enjoyed before the accident.

"Quadriplegia" results from injury to the spinal cord at the location of the cervical vertebrae, and those who are rendered quadriplegic generally lose motor and muscle control as well as sensation in both the upper and lower areas of the body, and lose the function of both their upper and lower extremities. Again many of those who suffer quadriplegia are the most courageous of us all, but the limitations imposed by their injury are devastating in terms of the loss of the panoply of physical joys they once held so precious.

Our California and San Francisco Paralysis Lawyers Strategy for Presenting the Paraplegia and Quadriplegia "Damage" Case.

The measure of "damages" to which the paralyzed client is entitled to recover under California law includes the client's "general" and "special" damages. General damages are commonly referred to by personal injury lawyers as "pain and suffering" damages, but in the quadriplegia or paraplegia case, our California and San Francisco paralysis lawyers consider that in addition to pain and suffering damages perhaps the most important element of general damages is what we call the client's "loss of enjoyment of life" damages. We present "loss of enjoyment of life damages" in part through medical specialist testimony, but our experience is that most important in the testimony of the client, his family and friends, and the photographs and family videos describing all of the activities the paralized client enjoyed most in his life prior to the accident which he no longer can enjoy. Our San Francisco paralysis lawyers can then juxtapose this evidence against a professionally produced "Day in the Life" documentary, showing the dignity and courage with which the quadriplegic or paraplegic client meets all of the difficulties associated with his post-accident daily life. The "art" of the experienced San Francisco paralysis lawyer in quadriplegia, paraplegia and other serious spinal cord injury cases, is to convey to the settlement judge or jury the devastation associated with the paralysis, the loss of all that was good and rewarding in the client's pre-accident life, and yet inspire the jurors or settlement judge to "identify" with the client as one who is meeting his life obstacles as the they would hope they might if similarly injured.

The presentation of "special damages" including past and future medical expense and past and future lost earnings is extremely complex and requires sophisticated San Francisco personal injury lawyers highly experienced in the presentation of serious and catastrophic injury cases. For a discussion of our California and San Francisco paralysis lawyers approach to the presentation of special economic damages, through the testimony of medical specialists, life care planners, vocational rehabilitation experts and forensic economists, please consider our "Serious & Catastrophic Injury Lawyers" page, at the top of our "Practice Areas" menu.

If you or a loved one suffered paralysis, quadriplegia, paraplegia or other serious spinal cord injury in a car, motorcycle, big rig truck, or bicycle auto accident, or as the result of a fall on commercial or residential property, or by other negligent or intentional conduct, you are welcome to submit the "Paralysis Lawyers Case Consultation Request" and our highly qualified San Francisco spinal cord injury lawyers will call you to discuss the facts of your case, the nature and extent of your injuries, your prognosis, and provide their initial case evaluation and recommendations. Our case consultations are free of charge. We welcome the opportunity to speak with you.

Our San Francisco Personal Injury Lawyers Provide Free Attorney Consultations in Car, Motorcycle, Big Rig Truck, and Bicycle Auto Accident Cases, Premises Liability, Slip and Fall cases, Product Liability including Drug Defect Litigation, Medical And Obstetrical Malpractice and Birth Injury Cases Involving Cerebral Palsy and Erbs Brachial Plexus Palsy, in Elder Abuse Cases. Our California and San Francisco Bay Area Food Poisening Lawyer Will is Pleased to Consider Your Ecoli HUS or TTP case, Listeria, Botulism, Campylobacter, Norovirus, Salmonella and Shigella Outbreak Case. We are Serious Injury San Francisco Personal Injury Attorneys With the Trial Lawyer Experience And Tried and True Strategy to Maximize Our Client's Opportunity to Receive Full & Fair Compensation for Their Serious and Catastrophic Injuries.

Our California and San Francisco serious injury lawyers are highly respected among our trial lawyer peers specifically for our complex litigation trial work in serious injury litigation. We have indeed tried the most complex personally injury cases presented in our courts, from phramaceutical product liability cases to medical malpractice cases, food poisoning litigation, toxic tort cases such as asbestos litigation. Our trial lawyers have indeed received San Francisco, California and national aclaim for our trial work and victories in complex serious injury litigation. You may review a brief summary of attorney, Ray Henke's trial lawyer credentials in the right column of this page and our California and San Francisco serious injury attorney qualifications, experience and track record discussed more fully on the subject matter pages listed in our "Practice Areas" menu. On those pages our California and San Francisco personal injury attorneys also discuss more fully and specifically our qualifications and particular interest in traumatic brain injury and paralysis, quadriplegia, paraplegia, and other serious spinal cord injury cases, obstetrical malpractice birth injury cases involving cerebral palsy and Erbs brachial plexus palsy cases, and pharmaceutical product birth defect litigation, food poisening cases, including Ecoli HUS and TTP cases, Listeria, Campylobacter, Norovirus, Botulism, Salmonella and Shigella Cases, including food poisoning outbreak cases.

Every serious injury case is a complex case, even the simplest liability cases, such as car, motorcycle, bicycle and some big rig truck accident cases, or premises liability, "slip and fall" cases. It is the properly presented general and special damage evidence which is complex, and requires highly qualified and experienced San Francisco serious and catastrophic injury trial lawyers to properly prepare and present at settlement conferences or at trial. Please consider our California and San Francisco personal injury lawyers approach to the presentation of damages in serious injury litigation set forth on our "Serious & Catastrophic Injury Lawyers" page. One of the major challenges for any San Francisco personal injury lawyer involved in serious injury litigation is to identify all the properly liabile or vicariously liable defendants, including employers, product manufacturers, and government entities, to overcome the often daunting "recoverability issue." Indeed it is essential that the appropriately qualified San Francisco personal injury attorney identify and investigate the liability of all potential defendants to assure that all potentially available insurance and assets will be available to compensate the seriously injured client for the full measure of his general and special economic damages.

Our California and San Francisco personal injury lawyers are pleased to provide free consultations to all those who have suffered injury as the result of the negligence or other conduct falling within our practice areas. You may contact our San Francisco serious injury attorneys by submitting the e-mail "Case Evaluation Request" and our San Francisco trial lawyers with specific experience in the subject matter of your case will call you to discuss the facts of your case, your injuries, prognosis, loss of enjoyment of life and economic damages, and will provide their case evaluation and recommendations. Our case consultations are entirely free of charge. We are here to serve you.