West Palm Beach Catastrophic Injury Lawyer
An injury this serious does not end when the hospital discharges you. It sets the terms for the rest of your life. We can take it from here. Call 833-370-8692 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our West Palm Beach personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Palm Beach County since 1993.
Catastrophic Injury claims in West Palm Beach
The insurer will make an early offer that looks large next to the bills you have seen so far. Meanwhile nobody has costed the surgeries still ahead, the equipment, the changes the house needs, or the work you will never do again. Putting a real number on decades rather than months is our job, and we start the day you call.
Palm Beach County is wide enough that the causes at one end have nothing to do with the other: interstate and turnpike corridors running its length, agricultural and industrial work in the west with machinery and chemicals, and continuous construction on a narrow coastal strip. The factor that shapes the arguments here is the age of the population. The same collision produces a worse outcome, and the defense will say a condition was already there. Florida law answers that: a condition that was stable and is now not is an aggravation, and an aggravation is compensable. What it requires is the prior records, so the state somebody was in before can be shown against the state they are in now.
Palm Beach County catastrophic injury claims are filed in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in downtown West Palm Beach. The county spans interstate corridors, an agricultural west and a dense coastal strip, and the causes differ sharply between them.
What to do after a catastrophic injury in West Palm Beach
- Do not let anybody settle anything yet. Offers arrive early in these cases and they arrive while nobody knows the outcome. A spinal cord injury has not declared itself at three weeks, an amputation has not been through revision surgery, and a burn has not been through grafting. A release signed now cannot be reopened when the picture becomes clear, and in this practice the gap between the early number and the real one is the widest on this site.
- Keep every receipt, from the first day. Parking at the hospital, the hotel near it, the flights for family, the wheelchair hired, the ramp built, the door widened, the childcare paid for. These add up to a great deal and almost nobody keeps them, because in the first weeks nobody is thinking about a claim. Start a folder or a photo album on a phone and put everything in it.
- Photograph the home before it is adapted. Steps, doorway widths, the bathroom, the height of everything. Once a house is adapted there is no record of what it was, and the cost of adapting it is part of the claim. The same applies to a vehicle: photograph it before it is replaced.
- Write down what a normal day used to be. What they did for work, what they did on a Saturday, who they cared for, what they had planned. It sounds sentimental and it is evidence: the loss in these cases is measured against a life, and the detail of that life is only available from the people who lived it. Write it down early, because it gets harder to remember accurately as the new normal takes over.
- Get the treating team talking to one another. A catastrophic injury is usually managed by several specialists who do not speak to each other, and the claim needs one coherent picture rather than five partial ones. Somebody has to gather it. That is work a firm does, and starting it early is what makes a life care plan credible later.
Where catastrophic injuries happen in West Palm Beach
Palm Beach County is wide enough that the causes at one end have nothing to do with the other.
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The interstate and the turnpike
Long high-speed corridors running the length of the county.
- I-95 and the turnpike, where speed decides the outcome
- Heavy vehicles moving between the coast and the interior
- Motorcycle riders on roads built for volume rather than for them
- Pedestrians struck on wide roads with no separation
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Agricultural and industrial work in the west
A working landscape with machinery, chemicals and heavy equipment.
- Machinery entanglement and crush injuries
- Falls from equipment and from height
- Chemical exposure and burns
- Employers, equipment owners and manufacturers as separate defendants
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Construction along the coast
Continuous building on a narrow strip.
- Falls from height, which is the recurring catastrophic event on site
- Crane and material handling failures
- Electrocution and arc flash
- A contractor chain where each link carries its own coverage
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An older population, and what that changes
The same collision produces a worse outcome, and the defense will say so.
- Pre-existing conditions that were stable and are now not
- Aggravation of an existing condition, which is compensable in Florida
- Prior medical records, which get gathered early rather than avoided
- Life expectancy, which becomes a contested question in a lifetime care case
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The rail corridors
Two active rail lines run the length of this county, through the middle of populated areas.
- Grade crossings where a road, a sidewalk and a track meet at the same place
- Crossing equipment, gates and warning devices, and whether each was working
- Sight lines along the approach, which are a design question with records behind them
- A rail operator, a crossing authority and a municipality, each answerable for something different
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Falls at height in an older housing stock
Maintenance and repair work on buildings that were not built for it.
- Roof and balcony work on older coastal buildings
- Ladders, scaffolding and lifts used on structures with no anchor points
- Building owners and contractors, each separately insured
- Concrete and structural repair work, which has increased sharply across the county
What causes them
- Pedestrians and cyclists struck at speed on a road with no separation
- Falls from height on a construction site, including through an unguarded opening
- Machinery and equipment failures at work and on industrial premises
- Electrocution and arc flash injuries
- Fires, explosions and scalding, including from propane and gas equipment
- Being struck by falling material or a load that was not secured
The injuries this practice exists for
Severe burns
Among the most painful injuries there are and among the longest to treat. Grafting, contracture release and reconstruction continue for years, and scarring is a separate head of loss under Florida law rather than being folded into pain and suffering.
Multiple trauma
Several serious injuries at once, where no single one would define the case but the combination ends independence. These are the hardest to value because each specialist reports on their own part, and somebody has to assemble the whole picture before anybody can say what it is worth.
Injuries that end a specific working life
A hand injury to a tradesperson, a back injury to a nurse, a shoulder to somebody who drives for a living. Not catastrophic by a general measure and catastrophic to that person, and the earning capacity analysis is where that gets proved rather than asserted.
What Florida law requires you to prove
The deadline and the share of the blame
Most claims from an incident on or after March 24, 2023 carry two years under Fla. Stat. § 95.11. Fault is divided under Fla. Stat. § 768.81, and since 2023 somebody found more than half responsible recovers nothing at all. In a case worth this much, a few percentage points of blame is worth a great deal of money, which is why liability is fought as hard as damages.
Finding enough coverage to matter
The defining problem in this practice is not proving the case, it is finding policies large enough to pay it. That means every possible defendant, every layer of excess coverage, and the underinsured motorist coverage on the injured person’s own side. The detail sits on our Florida catastrophic injury page.
The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide catastrophic injury page rather than being restated in every market.
How we prove it in Palm Beach County
A Palm Beach County file frequently has to separate what the injury did from what was already there.
- The trauma record from the first hours
- Prior medical records, gathered early so the aggravation can be shown rather than argued about
- Every possible defendant identified, including employers, owners and manufacturers
- A written coverage disclosure from each, including excess layers
- Underinsured motorist coverage on your own side
- Photographs of the home and vehicle before either is adapted
- Every receipt from day one
- The treating specialists assembled into one picture
- Crossing equipment maintenance and signal records where a rail corridor is involved
- Permit and inspection history where repair or structural work was being carried out
- The employer, the building owner and every contractor identified separately
Gather the prior records early rather than avoiding them. Florida takes a person as it finds them, and an aggravation of something stable is compensable, but only where the before and after can both be shown.
Who would handle your case
Being hurt in West Palm Beach is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled catastrophic injury claims across Florida since 1993, and one of them will take yours from the first call to the last check. They will tell you what your case is worth and why, and they will be straight with you about the parts that are hard.
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Richard P. Pravato Founding & Managing Attorney Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar since 2004, and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Injury cases exclusively since 1996. Full profile → -
Brett J. Yonon Senior Trial Attorney Selected to Florida Super Lawyers in 2024 and 2025. Nearly two decades in Florida courts, including a $3.5 million funeral home negligence verdict. Full profile →
What the insurer does in a catastrophic case
A catastrophic claim is handled differently from the first day, because the carrier knows what it is worth before you do.
- These future costs are speculative
- They are projections, which is not the same thing. A life care plan is built by a professional from what the treating doctors say is needed, priced at what those items cost, and brought to a present figure by an economist. It is evidence, and it is met with evidence rather than with the word speculative.
- Surveillance, and what it is for
- In a case this size there is usually surveillance, and it is looking for one good afternoon to play to a jury. It is not a reason to live smaller than the doctors allow. It is a reason to be exact with every doctor about what you can and cannot do, so the record and the footage tell the same story.
- A share of the blame, argued hard
- Since 2023 a finding above fifty percent ends a claim entirely, so in a case worth millions the fight over a few percentage points is worth fighting properly. It is answered with reconstruction, with records and with the physical evidence rather than with argument.
What a claim can include
Home and vehicle adaptation
Ramps, widened doorways, bathrooms, lifts and an adapted vehicle, including the replacement cycle rather than the first purchase alone.
Attendant care, including care given by family
Care a relative provides has a value, and it is claimable. Families routinely leave it out because it does not feel like a cost, and over a lifetime it is one of the biggest.
Pain, suffering and loss of ordinary life
The part with no invoice, and the part an early offer prices at a fraction of what it is.
Why Wolf & Pravato in West Palm Beach
A Palm Beach County catastrophic injury claim is filed in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in downtown West Palm Beach, and the firm has an office on Vista Parkway rather than a mailing address in the county. Where the case is decided by a life care plan and a fight about life expectancy, the medical assembly work has to be done properly and it has to be done here.
Board Certification in Civil Trial law is the Bar’s own measure of trial experience, and 861 of Florida’s 109,000-plus lawyers hold it. Richard Pravato has held it since 2004. It is the credential that changes how an adjuster reads a file, because it says the case has somewhere to go if they will not pay it.
Asking costs nothing and there is no fee unless we win. If we look at what happened and think the claim is not worth pursuing, we will say so on the first call instead of signing you up.
West Palm Beach catastrophic injury questions
He already had a bad back before this happened.
Florida law takes a person as it finds them. A condition that was stable and is now not is an aggravation, and an aggravation is compensable. What it requires is the prior records, so the state he was in before can be shown against the state he is in now. That is a reason to gather them early rather than a reason to worry about them.
They keep arguing about how long she will live.
It is an uncomfortable argument and it is unavoidable in any case funding care for a lifetime, because the length of that life decides the total. It is fought with published data about the specific condition and level of function, which is why the level of function has to be documented properly rather than described. A vague record lets the other side assume whatever suits them.
How long do these cases take?
Longer than smaller cases, and for a reason worth accepting. The claim cannot be properly valued until the medical picture stabilizes enough for a life care plan to be credible. Settling before that point is the single most expensive mistake available in a catastrophic case.
What counts as a catastrophic injury?
There is no single statutory definition for every purpose, but in practice it means an injury that permanently and substantially changes what a person can do: spinal cord injury and paralysis, amputation, severe burns, serious traumatic brain injury, and injuries requiring lifelong care. What matters legally is the permanence and the scale of future need.
The questions that come up on every kind of claim, deadlines, fees, recorded statements and fault, are answered on our Florida injury claim FAQ.
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Tell us what happened
A lawyer will listen, tell you what Florida law does with those facts, and be straight with you about whether it is worth bringing. We are at 2101 Vista Parkway, Suite 4500, West Palm Beach, FL 33411.