Rotator Cuff Injuries After a Fall: How to Get Compensation

Rotary cuff injuries are most commonly caused by progressive wear and tear of the tendon tissue over time. It is an injury that is often associated with athletes, especially athletes who complete frequent repetitive motions with a throwing shoulder. For example, baseball pitchers and football quarterbacks experience the painful symptoms of a rotator cuff injury because of repetitive shoulder motions. Although a rotator cuff injury is often associated with athletes, the same painful symptoms can develop after a fall, whether it is a slip and fall or a fall down a flight of stairs.

The rotator cuff represents a group of muscles and tendons that surround and protect the shoulder joint. When a rotator cuff tears, the head of the upper arm bone can dislodge from the shallow socket located in the shoulder. The result is more than just the loss of shoulder movement. Even a partially torn rotator cuff can generate excruciating pain, with full recovery time requiring several months of intensive physical therapy sessions.

If you sustained a rotator cuff injury after a fall, you should contact an experienced personal injury attorney who specializes in handling cases that involve slip and fall accidents. An experienced attorney conducts a thorough investigation to determine whether negligence played a role in causing your rotator cuff injury after a fall. Your lawyer also interviews witnesses and acts as a buffer between you and the insurance company processing your claim. If your personal injury attorney discovers another party committed one or more acts of negligence, then you receive the legal support required to file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages.

At Morgan and Morgan, we have provided legal support for personal injury cases since 1988. With more than 35 years of litigating personal injury cases, our team of lawyers has recovered around $20 billion in monetary damages for clients. A significant percentage of the money recovered came from cases involving slip and fall accidents. Receiving the compensation that you deserve for sustaining a rotator cuff injury after a fall requires the legal support of an experienced lawyer who specializes in handling slip and fall cases.

What Is a Rotator Cuff Injury?

Each shoulder contains a rotator cuff consisting of several muscles and tendons that secure the shoulder joint. Your rotator cuffs provide the shoulder with the flexibility to throw balls, lift objects, and perform calisthenics. The shoulder joint is an important part of climbing ladders and pulling heavy objects. Two primary causes produce rotator cuff injuries: repetitive motion and a strong impact A rotator cuff injury after a fall develops because a strong impact damages one or more of the muscles and/or tendons protecting the shoulder joint. Every year, millions of Americans seek medical attention from a healthcare provider to treat and rehabilitate a torn rotator cuff. 

What Are the Symptoms of a Rotator Cuff Injury?

The symptoms of a rotator cuff injury depend on the cause of the injury. If you experience recurrent pain that slowly grows worse over time, then you probably sustained a rotator cuff injury as a result of completing repetitive motions. On the other hand, the immediate development of excruciating pain indicates a strong impact is the cause of a rotator cuff injury. Excruciating pain in the shoulder joint makes it difficult to sleep on the injured shoulder, as well as limits the shoulder’s mobility. A rotator cuff injury after a fall can be especially painful because the shoulder made a direct impact on the floor or ground.

How Does a Healthcare Provider Diagnose a Rotator Cuff Injury After a Fall?

Because of the immediate development of highly painful symptoms, a rotator cord injury after a fall requires acting with a sense of urgency to receive a diagnosis. The healthcare provider conducting the diagnostic process first puts you through a comprehensive examination to detect whether any other injuries developed because of a slip and fall accident. Victims of slip and fall accidents frequently develop additional injuries in addition to the most painful injury. Your healthcare provider also needs to learn your medical history to determine whether you have sustained a previous rotator cuff injury after a fall.

An X-ray represents a diagnostic test that uses invisible electromagnetic beams to generate images of a damaged rotator cuff. A series of x-rays taken from different angles provide your healthcare provider with a detailed look at the extent of the damage done to the muscles and tendons protecting the shoulder joint. Your healthcare provider also might run a series of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tests, which uses a combination of radio frequencies and large magnets to create images of the rotator cuff that download on a computer screen.

How Is a Rotator Cuff Injury After a Fall Treated?

A severely damaged rotator cuff might require immediate surgery to prevent further damage from producing excruciating pain. If your rotator cuff experienced a full tear, surgery can stop the muscles and tendons located in the shoulder joint from deteriorating any further. After surgery, your healthcare provider recommends a wide variety of treatment options, including prolonged rest, corticosteroid injections, and/or the ingestion of nonsteroidal, anti-inflammatory medications. Ultrasound therapy is another treatment option that works particularly well on victims that have sustained a partial tear of a rotator cuff.

After completing a treatment regimen, your healthcare provider recommends a rehabilitation program to help you recover from the damage caused by a rotator cuff injury after a fall. Physical therapy includes stretching and strengthening exercises and when the damaged rotator cuff heals enough to allow for more physical exertion, your healthcare provider suggests a weight training strategy to restore the strength of the rotator cuff. The key is to complete physical therapy sessions with gradual increases in intensity. Rushing the rehabilitation process can cause additional damage to an already overly sensitive group of muscles and tendons. 

What Should I Do After a Slip and Fall Incident?

Sustaining a fully damaged rotator cuff after a fall can make it difficult to process the right way to react. Excruciating pain can become the only focus, when you should also be taking steps to address several additional issues. How you respond after a personal injury incident determines the strength of an insurance claim and a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages.

Get Immediate Medical Care

Even a partially torn rotator cuff requires immediate medical care to prevent the partial tear from developing into a full tear that takes several months to heal. If you cannot maneuver a steering wheel, have someone you trust drive you to the nearest medical facility to receive a comprehensive diagnosis and undergo extensive treatment. If you delay seeking medical care for any reason, the attorney representing the other party will contest the validity of your claim for compensation.

Inform an Owner or Manager

Slip and fall accidents happen at several types of businesses, such as hotels, restaurants, shopping malls, and grocery stores. Notifying a manager or owner of a business ensures you receive an incident report for your personal injury attorney from Morgan and Morgan to review. An incident report should include the names and contact information of every witness, as well as a detailed description of what transpired before, during, and after the slip and fall incident. If you require emergency medical care, ask an employee or a witness to the slip and fall accident to report the incident to a manager or owner.

Hire a Personal Injury Attorney From Morgan and Morgan

Contacting an attorney from Morgan and Morgan who specializes in handling cases that involve slip and fall accidents ensures you act with a sense of urgency to receive just compensation for a rotator cuff injury after a fall. Your lawyer reviews the incident report to determine whether negligence played a role in the development of your rotator cuff injury. The key is to gather and organize enough physical evidence that proves the presence of the four elements of negligence, which are a duty of care, breaching the duty of care doctrine, causation, and financial losses. One of the most important pieces of physical evidence is security camera footage that captured the slip and fall incident.

What Is the Statute of Limitations for Filing a Personal Injury Lawsuit?

If you sustained a rotator cuff injury after a fall, you have a limited amount of time to take legal action. Each state has set a deadline for filing a personal injury lawsuit. Most states grant plaintiffs between two and four years to file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages. However, a few states allow as many as six years and as few as one year for plaintiffs to take legal action for slip and fall accidents. Regardless of how long you have to file a personal injury lawsuit in the state where you live, the clock starts ticking on the day when you sustained a rotator cuff injury after a fall. The only exception is if you developed delayed symptoms, which can occur if you sustained a partial tear of a rotator cuff that became a full tear caused by repetitive motions of the shoulder joint.

No matter how long the state where you live allows you to take legal action, you should not procrastinate when it comes to filing a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages. You are obligated to take care of all expenses that are associated with your rotator cuff injury. This includes costly medical bills generated by diagnostic tests, treatment programs, and physical therapy sessions. Healthcare providers do not wait until the resolution of an insurance claim or a civil lawsuit to get paid for their services. Moreover, your attorney wants to speak with witnesses as soon as possible after a slip and fall incident to receive the most accurate version of events.

If you do not file a personal injury lawsuit before the expiration of the statute of limitations, you can expect the court clerk processing your case to remove it from the judicial docket.

Contact an Experienced Personal Injury Attorney From Morgan and Morgan

Sustaining a rotator cuff injury after a fall represents one of the most serious types of personal injury cases. Schedule a free case evaluation with one of the accomplished attorneys at Morgan and Morgan who specializes in handling cases that involve slip and fall accidents.