Atlanta Hand, Wrist & Elbow Injury Attorney

Injuries to the Arm including the hand, wrist, and the shoulder

There’s an old saying that goes, “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”. That saying is particularly true when it comes to the use of our hands, wrists, and elbows. As we go through our day, we inevitably use our hands, wrists, and elbows for crucial activities of daily living, or what is commonly referred to in the medical filed as “ADLs”.  ADLs include every day routine activities like brushing your teeth, putting your socks, bathing, buttoning your shirt, opening doors and things like that you do every day.

The human hand has 27 bones including 8 bones just in the wrist. Throughout the hand and wrist there are more than 100 ligaments and tendons that add to the complexity of our hand and wrist anatomy. The elbow is equally complex because it is such a large, multi-directional joint with many ligaments, tendons, and muscle attachments.

How Hand, Wrist, and Elbow Injuries Can Impact Your Physical and Mental Well-being

Sustaining a serious injury to your hand, wrist, or elbow can be debilitating not only to your physical ability to care for yourself or your loved ones, but also to your mental health because injuries to those parts of the body often make it impossible to return to your hobbies and sometimes even your occupation.

Our Atlanta personal injury attorneys have carved a niche in these types of injuries and know the heavy toll it takes on someone who has suffered a hand, wrist, or elbow injury because of another person’s negligence.  We have decades of experience punctuated with our recent courtroom successes for these exact types of injuries.  In 2024, Tobin Injury Law’s attorneys secured two seven-figure jury verdicts at two different trials in two different counties for clients who had injuries to their hands and wrists: $1,600,000.00 in Fulton County and $2,000,000.00 in Gwinnett County.

In one case, our client’s hands and wrists–both the left and right–were seriously injured in a bicycle accident caused by the negligence of another bicycle rider. Our client had multiple fractures in his hands and wrists that required five surgeries and more than two years of physical therapy to rehabilitate.

To prepare for the trial, our Tobin Injury Law trial attorneys met with our client’s hand and wrist surgeon to gather his sworn testimony for evidence. That meeting is known as an evidentiary deposition. We played that deposition at trial. We also spent time meeting with our client’s physical therapist, occupational therapist, and hired an independent expert to evaluate our client. By spending many months learning the medicine and making ourselves intimately familiar with the medicine, we felt very confident in our medical knowledge.

Using Depositions to Secure Vital Medical Testimony

Under Georgia law, attorneys are allowed to take depositions of people who are not parties to the lawsuit. Depositions can be taken as evidentiary depositions or also known as preservation of evidence depositions aka for use at trial depositions. Oftentimes, we will take the hand and wrist surgeon’s deposition for use at trial. Our Atlanta Hand Wrist and Elbow Injury attorneys take these depositions regularly to ensure that we have the testimony of the doctor who is treating our client at trial no matter what that doctor is doing that day. We then get to play that video in the courtroom for the jury so that the jury can hear about the our client’s injuries from the hand and wrist surgeon himself and better understand the surgery that was done.

Our lawyers also often hire expert medical illustrators to create detailed and easy to understand illustrations that we get blown up on large boards showing step-by-step details of the hand and wrist surgeon’s process for repairing our client’s severely injured hands and wrists. The medical illustrations show the complex anatomy of the hand and wrist so that the jury can see how difficult it is to heal severe hand and wrist injuries due to the small bones, joints, tendons, and ligaments. Those medical illustrations also show the metal hardware, human cadaver bone, and tools used during surgery.  These visuals are a powerful tool that help best convey the story.

How Our Atlanta Injury Attorneys Secure Comprehensive Medical Evidence

Before trial, we also gather sworn testimony of the physical therapists who treat our clients. These are called medical reports. Under Georgia law, O.C.G.A Section 24-8-826, you are allowed to bring a written medical report from a healthcare provider to trial and read it to the jury to explain your client’s medical treatment. Tobin Injury Law’s trial attorneys meet with physical therapists, doctors, and occupational therapists who write detailed reports.  We then read those medical reports at trial in front of the jury.

Using the Tools to Win Justice in the Court

In the second hand injury case our Tobin Injury Law attorneys took to trial in late 2024, our client’s right (her dominant) hand was injured by a door that was slammed onto her hand as she was attempting to enter her hotel room. Our client was unaware that the hotel had double- booked her room; a different guest was already occupying the hotel room. As our client opened the door, the person inside the hotel room slammed the door onto our client’s hand causing a severe cut on her hand that severed her ulnar nerve and two tendons in her hand.

Our trial team again took the deposition of the hand surgeon who repaired our client’s hand and created medical illustrations to show the severity of our client’s injuries in detail. We also had our client undergo a Functional Capacity Evaluation where a physical therapist performed a series of tests to show that our client lost 50% of her grip strength due to her injuries.

We explained to the jury that due to our client’s severe hand injuries caused by the hotel double-booking the room, she had to give up many of her life’s passions including rock climbing, making art, and lifting heavy weights at the gym.

Using depositions, medical illustrations and medical reports to tell the story, the hard work paid off at trial as the jury returned a verdict for $2,000,000.00 to our deserving client.

Contact Our Atlanta Hand, Wrist and Elbow Specialists  Today

If you have suffered a hand, wrist, or elbow injury in Georgia call our attorneys at (404) 587-8423. We have the experience and expertise to help you win your case and get the justice you deserve.