How Serious Injury Cases Are Investigated and Proven
The Short Answer
A Colorado catastrophic injury lawyer does much more than negotiate with an insurance company.
When an injury may permanently affect a person’s ability to work, walk, think, communicate, care for themselves, or live independently, the lawyer must investigate both what caused the injury and what that injury will mean for the person’s future.
That can require preserving evidence before it disappears, identifying every potentially responsible party and insurance policy, working with physicians and other experts, documenting future medical care, determining lost earning capacity, understanding permanent physical limitations, and preparing the case so it can be presented to a jury if a fair settlement cannot be reached.
At Shafner Injury Law, we believe a catastrophic injury case should be investigated from the beginning with one question in mind:
What evidence will be necessary to show the full impact of this injury years from now—not simply what the medical bills are today?
Key Takeaways
- Catastrophic injury cases are different because the consequences may continue for the rest of the injured person’s life.
- The investigation must address both liability—who caused the injury—and damages—what the injury has taken from the person and what will be needed in the future.
- Future medical care often requires evidence from treating doctors, medical specialists and, in appropriate cases, life-care planners.
- Lost earning capacity may require vocational and economic analysis rather than simply adding up missed paychecks.
- Evidence showing how the injury affects everyday life can be just as important as hospital records and diagnostic studies.
- Insurance coverage and the identity of every potentially responsible person or company should be investigated early.
- Trial preparation matters even when a case ultimately settles.
What Is a Catastrophic Injury?
In personal injury practice, a catastrophic injury generally means an injury that causes severe, long-term or permanent consequences.
Examples can include:
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Spinal cord injuries
- Paralysis
- Amputations
- Severe orthopedic injuries
- Pelvic fractures
- Significant nerve damage
- Severe burns
- Loss of vision
- Permanent neurological injuries
- Injuries requiring repeated surgeries
- Injuries requiring lifelong medical or personal care
The defining issue is not simply the name of the diagnosis.
A fracture that heals completely may have very different consequences from a fracture that leaves a person unable to walk normally, work at the same occupation, climb stairs, drive, or care for themselves.
Likewise, a brain injury may affect memory, judgment, personality, concentration and the ability to work even though the injured person appears physically normal.
A catastrophic injury lawyer therefore needs to understand the person, not merely the diagnosis.
Why Are Catastrophic Injury Cases Different From Ordinary Personal Injury Claims?
Many injury claims focus largely on what has already happened:
What medical treatment was received?
How much work was missed?
What bills were incurred?
A catastrophic injury case has another dimension:
What is going to happen in the future?
A 35-year-old person who suffers a permanent spinal cord injury may require medical care, equipment and assistance for decades.
A person with a serious traumatic brain injury may never return to the same employment.
Someone with a severe pelvic or orthopedic injury may face arthritis, additional surgery, chronic pain or limitations on walking and physical activity.
The injured person’s family may also experience profound changes. A spouse may become a caregiver. A home may need to be modified. Transportation needs may change. Activities that were once routine may no longer be possible.
A catastrophic injury case therefore requires lawyers and experts to look beyond the immediate hospitalization.
Step One: Determine Exactly How the Injury Happened
Before damages can be recovered, liability usually must be established.
The lawyer’s first job is therefore to determine:
Who caused the injury, and why?
That investigation can vary dramatically depending on the type of accident.
In a commercial truck collision, evidence may include driver records, electronic logging information, vehicle data, maintenance records, dispatch communications, cargo-loading evidence and federal motor-carrier records.
In a premises liability case, the investigation may involve surveillance video, maintenance records, prior incidents, inspection procedures and evidence showing what the property owner knew about the dangerous condition.
In a negligent-security case, evidence can include prior crimes, security policies, staffing, lighting, surveillance systems and the history of problems at the property.
In an automobile collision, vehicle data, photographs, video, witness statements, police evidence and insurance information may become important.
The investigation should begin early because some evidence does not remain available forever.
Video can be erased.
Vehicles can be repaired or destroyed.
Electronic information can be overwritten.
Employees change jobs.
Memories fade.
The first months of a serious injury case can affect what evidence is available years later when the case reaches trial.
Step Two: Identify Every Potentially Responsible Party
A catastrophic accident is not always the responsibility of only one person.
Consider a serious commercial trucking collision. Potentially responsible parties might include:
- The truck driver
- The motor carrier
- A freight broker
- A shipper
- A company that loaded the cargo
- A maintenance contractor
- The owner of the tractor or trailer
- A manufacturer, depending upon the facts
Likewise, an injury occurring on commercial property may involve a property owner, property manager, security contractor, maintenance company or another business.
An experienced catastrophic injury attorney should investigate the complete chain of responsibility rather than stopping when the first insurance policy is located.
This becomes especially important when the injuries are severe.
Step Three: Find All Available Insurance Coverage
Catastrophic injuries can generate medical expenses and economic losses that greatly exceed an ordinary automobile liability policy.
Determining insurance coverage can therefore be a major part of the investigation. Depending upon the case, available coverage may include:
- Automobile liability insurance
- Commercial general liability insurance
- Motor-carrier coverage
- Umbrella or excess insurance
- Uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage
- Employer or corporate insurance policies
- Coverage applicable to additional responsible companies
The person who caused the accident may not be the only potential source of insurance coverage.
The lawyer should investigate the relationships among the individuals and businesses involved and obtain the applicable policies when possible.
Step Four: Understand the Injury, Not Just the Medical Records
Medical records are essential.
But medical records are written primarily so healthcare providers can diagnose and treat patients. They are not written to explain to a jury what someone’s life will look like ten or twenty years later.
A catastrophic injury lawyer therefore needs to understand the medical evidence in depth. That can require working with:
- Treating physicians
- Surgeons
- Neurologists
- Neurosurgeons
- Orthopedic specialists
- Rehabilitation physicians
- Neuropsychologists
- Physical and occupational therapists
- Other appropriate medical specialists
The lawyer needs to know:
What structures were injured?
What treatment has already occurred?
What problems are permanent?
Is additional surgery likely?
What complications may develop?
What restrictions will remain?
What will this person probably need in the future?
The answers to those questions can dramatically affect the value and presentation of a catastrophic injury case.
Step Five: Prove Future Medical Care
One of the most important parts of a catastrophic injury case can be the cost of future care.
Colorado’s current pattern civil jury instructions recognize that recoverable economic losses in an appropriate personal injury case may include reasonable and necessary medical, hospital and other expenses that a plaintiff will probably incur in the future.
But future medical expenses cannot simply be guessed. They need evidence.
Depending upon the injuries, future needs might include:
- Additional surgery
- Physician visits
- Physical therapy
- Occupational therapy
- Medication
- Injections
- Rehabilitation
- Prosthetic devices
- Wheelchairs or mobility equipment
- Replacement medical equipment
- Home health assistance
- Attendant care
- Psychological or neurological treatment
- Diagnostic testing
- Home modifications
- Transportation needs
For the most serious injuries, a lawyer may work with a life-care planner.
What Is a Life-Care Plan?
A life-care plan is an assessment of the medical and support services a seriously injured person is reasonably expected to require in the future.
It can address the type of care, how often it will be needed, how long it will be needed and its anticipated cost.
A life-care planner does not replace the treating physicians. The medical foundation for future treatment usually must come from qualified healthcare providers.
The life-care planner can then help organize those future needs into a comprehensive picture.
For a person who may require decades of future treatment, this can be critical.
Without that analysis, a settlement based primarily upon today’s expenses may fail to account for tomorrow’s needs.
Step Six: Determine the Effect on the Person’s Ability to Work
Lost wages and loss of earning capacity are not necessarily the same thing.
Lost wages generally describe income the person has already lost.
Loss of earning capacity concerns what the injury may do to the person’s ability to earn money in the future.
Suppose a 40-year-old construction worker suffers an injury that prevents heavy physical labor. The worker may eventually return to some type of employment. That does not necessarily mean there has been no economic loss.
The relevant questions may include:
- Can the person return to the same occupation?
- Can the person work the same number of hours?
- Can the person perform overtime?
- Will physical restrictions limit advancement?
- Does the person need to retrain for another occupation?
- Will the new occupation pay less?
- Will the injury shorten the person’s working life?
In significant cases, vocational rehabilitation experts and economists may help evaluate those issues.
Step Seven: Document What the Injury Has Done to Everyday Life
Some of the most important consequences of a catastrophic injury will never appear on an MRI.
Consider what happens when a previously independent person can no longer:
- Walk without assistance
- Carry a grandchild
- Drive
- Golf
- Ski
- Cook
- Travel
- Sleep normally
- Perform household work
- Participate in family activities
- Work in the same profession
- Live without pain
Colorado’s current civil jury instructions recognize noneconomic injuries that can include physical and mental pain and suffering, inconvenience, emotional stress and impairment of quality of life when supported by the evidence.
The challenge for the lawyer is to make those losses understandable.
That may require testimony from the injured person, spouse, family members, friends, coworkers and others who knew the person before and after the injury.
Photographs, video and other demonstrative evidence can also help explain changes that medical terminology cannot fully communicate.
Step Eight: Evaluate Permanent Physical Impairment and Disfigurement
A permanent injury is different from temporary pain. An injured person may complete treatment yet still be left with:
- Limited range of motion
- Difficulty walking
- Weakness
- Paralysis
- Loss of a limb
- Nerve injury
- Cognitive limitations
- Scarring
- Altered appearance
- Permanent restrictions
Colorado’s current civil jury instructions separately address physical impairment and disfigurement when those categories are supported by the evidence.
The focus should therefore not simply be whether the patient has been “discharged” from treatment.
What can this person no longer do because of the injury?
Step Nine: Investigate Future Risks and Complications
The consequences of catastrophic injuries do not always remain static. Some injuries create future risks.
For example, depending upon the particular medical condition, a seriously injured person may face:
- Additional surgery
- Hardware problems
- Arthritis
- Chronic infection
- Pressure injuries
- Mobility complications
- Chronic pain
- Deteriorating joints
- Neurological problems
- Complications associated with long-term immobility
The treating doctors are often the most important witnesses concerning those risks.
An attorney handling a catastrophic injury case should ask the physicians not only what happened in the past, but what the patient’s medical future is reasonably expected to look like.
Step Ten: Hire the Right Experts
Not every catastrophic injury case requires the same experts. The appropriate experts depend upon the injuries and disputed issues.
A case might involve:
- Accident reconstruction experts
- Trucking-safety experts
- Human-factors experts
- Engineers
- Medical specialists
- Life-care planners
- Vocational rehabilitation experts
- Economists
- Neuropsychologists
The purpose is not to hire experts simply because the case is large.
The purpose is to identify subjects requiring specialized knowledge and obtain qualified testimony that will help explain those subjects accurately.
Cheyenne Frontier Days, Wyoming’s biggest event of the year, sits under the state’s version of this law, the Wyoming Recreation Safety Act. It works on the same basic principle as Colorado’s statute: protection for the unpredictable risks of being around large animals, not for an ordinary fall on the way to your seat.
Step Eleven: Take Depositions and Obtain Evidence From the Defendant
Some of the most important evidence in a personal injury case comes from the defendant’s own files and witnesses.
Through litigation and discovery, attorneys may obtain:
- Corporate policies
- Training materials
- Safety procedures
- Employee records
- Inspection records
- Electronic communications
- Photographs
- Video
- Incident reports
- Insurance information
- Prior complaints or incidents when legally discoverable
- Testimony from company representatives
Depositions allow witnesses to be questioned under oath.
In a corporate case, the process may also include testimony from a company representative designated to speak about particular subjects.
This is often where the difference between simply having a lawyer and having a lawyer prepared to litigate a serious case becomes important.
Step Twelve: Prepare the Case for Trial
Many personal injury cases settle. That does not mean trial preparation is unnecessary.
Insurance companies and defense lawyers evaluate risk. One part of that risk is what could happen if the case is tried.
A catastrophic injury attorney may need to prepare:
- Treating physician testimony
- Expert testimony
- Depositions
- Medical illustrations
- Anatomical exhibits
- Accident reconstruction evidence
- Life-care evidence
- Economic-loss calculations
- Day-in-the-life evidence
- Motions concerning evidence
- Jury instructions
- Witness examinations
- Demonstrative exhibits
A case that has been thoroughly prepared can be evaluated differently from a case in which everyone assumes the plaintiff will accept whatever settlement is offered.
At Shafner Injury Law, we believe serious cases should be developed so that settlement remains a choice—not the only available option.
Why Trial Experience Matters in a Catastrophic Injury Case
Catastrophic injury litigation can involve complicated medicine, multiple defendants, expert testimony and millions of dollars in disputed future damages.
The lawyer must be able to reduce complicated evidence to understandable questions:
What happened?
Who was responsible?
What injury did it cause?
How has the person’s life changed?
What will that person reasonably need in the future?
A lawyer who prepares the case should also understand how the evidence ultimately will be presented to a judge and jury.
Alan C. Shafner began practicing law in 1979.
Before representing injured people in private practice, he served as a felony trial prosecutor with the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office.
Because of his accomplishments as a trial attorney, he was selected for membership in the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) in 1998.
Shafner Injury Law has handled catastrophic injury cases involving severe brain injuries, significant orthopedic injuries, negligent security, commercial transportation accidents and other serious injuries.
Examples of Shafner Injury Law Catastrophic Injury Results
$4,091,767.94 Judgment — Brain Injury
Our client suffered a devastating brain injury after being struck by a vehicle while riding a motorcycle. A judgment of more than $4 million was entered in the client’s favor.
$800,000 Settlement — Severe Orthopedic Injury
Our client suffered a severe ankle fracture requiring surgery after a head-on collision. The matter resolved for $800,000.
Confidential Resolution Following Trial — Catastrophic Negligent-Security Injury
A client suffered catastrophic injuries in a negligent-security case involving a hotel. The litigation lasted approximately ten years, included three appeals, a Colorado Supreme Court proceeding and a two-week jury trial before ultimately resolving confidentially.
Past results do not guarantee or predict the outcome of any other case. Every case depends upon its own facts, evidence, injuries, insurance coverage and applicable law.
View Shafner Injury Law Case Results
Frequently Asked Questions About Colorado Catastrophic Injury Cases
What qualifies as a catastrophic injury?
There is no single diagnosis that defines every catastrophic injury case. In personal injury practice, the term generally describes severe injuries that produce substantial long-term or permanent consequences, such as brain injuries, spinal cord damage, paralysis, amputations, serious orthopedic injuries and other conditions that substantially affect a person’s work or everyday life.
How is a catastrophic injury case different from a regular personal injury case?
The major difference is often the future. A catastrophic injury case may require proof of decades of future medical expenses, lost earning capacity, permanent impairment, personal-care needs and changes in quality of life. Establishing those damages may require testimony from several types of medical and economic experts.
Who pays future medical expenses after a catastrophic injury?
If another person or company is legally responsible, reasonable future medical expenses caused by the injury may be part of the damages sought in the personal injury case when supported by sufficient evidence. The available recovery also depends upon liability, insurance coverage, applicable law and the particular facts.
What is a life-care planner?
A life-care planner is a professional who may help identify and organize the future medical care, services, equipment and assistance that a catastrophically injured person is reasonably expected to need. The plan should be supported by appropriate medical evidence.
Do I need an economist?
Not in every case. An economist may be useful when the case involves significant future lost earnings, loss of earning capacity or the present value of substantial future economic losses.
Can family members testify about how the injury changed someone’s life?
Family members, friends and coworkers may have important firsthand knowledge of how the injured person’s abilities and daily activities changed after an accident. Whether particular testimony is admissible depends upon the facts and the rules of evidence.
How long do I have to bring a catastrophic injury claim in Colorado?
The deadline depends upon the type of claim. Colorado does not have one statute of limitations that applies to every catastrophic injury case. Motor-vehicle accidents, general negligence cases, wrongful death, claims involving governmental entities, medical negligence and other claims can involve different deadlines or notice requirements. Because missing a legal deadline can prevent a claim from being pursued, the applicable deadline should be investigated promptly.
How soon should I contact a lawyer after a catastrophic injury?
Early investigation can be particularly important in a catastrophic injury case because video, electronic data and physical evidence can disappear or be overwritten. Contacting a lawyer promptly does not mean a lawsuit must immediately be filed. It allows evidence, responsible parties, insurance coverage and legal deadlines to be identified before opportunities are lost.
What Should a Family Look for When Hiring a Catastrophic Injury Attorney?
Families facing a severe injury should ask practical questions.
Does the lawyer personally handle significant cases?
Has the lawyer tried serious personal injury cases?
Does the lawyer understand expert testimony and complicated medical evidence?
Will the lawyer investigate future medical needs and earning capacity?
Does the firm have the resources to retain appropriate experts?
Will the client have direct access to the attorney?
Is the lawyer prepared to take the case to trial if necessary?
A catastrophic injury case may last several years. The lawyer-client relationship therefore matters.
Injured Catastrophically in Colorado?
A catastrophic injury can change almost every part of a person’s life.
The legal case should therefore address more than the immediate hospital bill. It should investigate:
- Why the injury happened.
- Everyone who may be responsible.
- Every available source of insurance.
- The medical care already received.
- The medical care likely to be required in the future.
- The effect on employment and earning ability.
- Permanent physical limitations.
- The ways everyday life has changed.
Alan C. Shafner has represented injured people for more than four decades and has been a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates since 1998.
Shafner Injury Law represents people and families facing catastrophic injuries throughout Colorado and Wyoming.
If you or a family member has suffered a serious permanent injury because of another person’s or company’s conduct, we can evaluate what happened and explain the next steps.
CALL SHAFNER INJURY LAW FOR A FREE CONSULTATION
Denver: (303) 796-0555
Cheyenne: (307) 277-6956
Grand County: (720) 355-6932
No attorney fee unless we recover for you, subject to the written fee agreement.
Related Shafner Injury Law Resources
Denver Catastrophic Injury Lawyer
Denver Personal Injury Lawyer
Denver Truck Accident Lawyer
Real Cases. Real Results.
Authoritative Colorado Legal Resource
Colorado Judicial Branch — Colorado Jury Instructions, Civil, Chapter 6: Damages for Injuries to Persons or Property
Colorado Civil Jury Instructions
Reviewed by Alan C. Shafner
Colorado attorney since 1979 | Member, American Board of Trial Advocates since 1998
Last reviewed: September 2026
This article provides general information about Colorado personal injury law and is not legal advice. The law and applicable deadlines vary according to the facts and type of claim. Reading this article or contacting Shafner Injury Law does not by itself create an attorney-client relationship.