Injuries That You Cannot See

Owen, Patterson & Owen is a personal injury firm in Valencia. We represent clients from all over the world, as well as our neighbors throughout Santa Clarita and Southern California. It is important to remember that these cases involve personal injuries, not just bodily injuries. Two major recent cases highlight that many injuries are to the mind and heart but which cannot be healed by neurologists or cardiologists.
The Route 91 Shooting cases were resolved for the total amount of $800 million. Various documents were analyzed by the Case Administrators, to determine the amount of individual settlements including medical records and bills, tax records if someone was disabled or deceased, and assorted others. An amount was awarded for a finding of PTSD. Those 4 letters were so very important in this case. PTSD can keep its victim from leaving their home, from working, from eating correctly, from having meaningful relationships, from exercising, from having any sort of a “life.” With few exceptions, if PTSD was not in the medical records, a Route 91 shooting victim did not receive compensation for emotional trauma despite the impossibility that such an event could occur without trauma.
The personal injury/class action cases surrounding the sexual abuse cases at USC by the school gynecologist, George Tyndall, were settled for the gross amount of $1 billion. These cases are all about emotional injuries. While some survivors have physical manifestations of emotional injuries, it is still about emotional trauma. In this case, some survivors were victimized nearly three decades ago but did not realize that they were, in fact, abused until they read the article in the Los Angeles Times in May 2018 about USC and George Tyndall. They just knew that the gynecologist was “creepy,” or that they felt uncomfortable during their appointments. For all those years, some suffered from anxiety, depression, or a host of other symptoms of emotional trauma, yet were unable to link these conditions to anything until they learned that what they experienced during their first gynecologist appointment at USC was anything but normal.  
At OPO, our goal is to get full compensation for our clients’ physical and emotional injuries. If you need us, we are here for you. Contact us at info@opolaw.com or 661-799-3899.