In this article 8 sections
You walked away from the crash. You may have hit your head on the window or the steering wheel, or maybe you never hit it at all and just got thrown hard against the seat belt. You felt shaken but basically fine. Then, a day or two later, the headaches started. Or you noticed you were reading the same email three times, losing words mid-sentence, snapping at your kids, or lying awake at 3 a.m.
That pattern is common with concussions, and it is one of the reasons brain injury claims are so often undervalued. The injury is real, but it may not show up on a scan, and the symptoms may not appear at the scene. If you are dealing with this after an accident in California, here is what the medical sources say, why your records matter so much, and what to know about the legal side.
One note before we start: nothing here is medical advice. If you or someone you love has symptoms after a blow or jolt to the head, see a physician. The legal questions can wait a day. Your brain cannot.
What a Concussion Actually Is
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, simply as “an injury that affects how the brain works.” The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health, describes a concussion as a type of mild TBI that may be considered a temporary injury to the brain but could take minutes to several months to heal. NINDS lists a blow to the head or a rapid movement of the brain within the skull among the causes, which is why a whiplash-type jolt in a car crash can matter even without a direct hit.
“Mild” is a medical classification, not a description of how the injury feels to live with. NINDS notes that post-concussion syndrome involves symptoms that last for weeks or longer. The CDC says most people with a mild TBI or concussion feel better within a couple of weeks, but not everyone does, and symptoms differ from person to person.
According to the CDC, concussion symptoms can include:
- Physical: headaches, dizziness or balance problems, nausea or vomiting early on, sensitivity to light or noise, vision problems, and feeling tired with no energy
- Thinking and memory: trouble concentrating, feeling slowed down, feeling foggy or groggy, memory problems, and trouble thinking clearly
- Emotional: irritability, anxiety or nervousness, sadness, and feeling more emotional than usual
- Sleep: sleeping more or less than usual, or trouble falling asleep
The CDC also lists danger signs that call for 911 or an emergency department right away, including a headache that gets worse and does not go away, repeated vomiting, slurred speech, weakness or numbness, seizures, one pupil larger than the other, increasing confusion or agitation, and being unusually drowsy or unable to wake up. If you see any of these, stop reading and get help.
Why Symptoms Can Show Up Later
The CDC states plainly that concussion signs and symptoms may not show up right away and may take hours or days to appear or be noticed. Its guidance for patients adds that symptoms can change during recovery: headaches and nausea may come first, and a week or two later a person may notice they feel more emotional than usual or have trouble sleeping.
Adrenaline after a crash can mask how you feel, and NINDS explains that some brain damage is secondary, meaning it develops through reactive processes over hours, days, or weeks after the initial trauma.
From a claims standpoint, delayed symptoms create an opening for the insurance company. If your first mention of headaches or memory trouble is three weeks after the crash, an adjuster may argue something else caused it. The answer is not to exaggerate early. It is to get evaluated promptly, report every symptom you have, and go back when new ones appear.
When the Scan Comes Back Normal
Many people are told their CT scan was “normal” and assume that means they were not hurt. That is not what it means.
NINDS explains that CT imaging can show a skull fracture and brain bruising, bleeding, or swelling, and that MRI is more sensitive and can pick up subtler changes a CT may miss. But NINDS also states that currently available and clinically validated imaging technologies, blood tests, and other measures cannot always detect damage from mild, concussive injuries. That is why doctors rely heavily on the history of the injury, the physical and neurological exam, and reported symptoms, and why neuropsychological testing of memory, concentration, processing speed, and problem solving is often used alongside imaging after a mild TBI.
A normal scan is good news, but it does not rule out a concussion.
Building the Medical Record
John Reardon spent nearly two decades treating injured patients as a chiropractor before he became a lawyer. He is not a neurologist, and neither of us diagnoses brain injuries. What that clinical background does give us is a practical understanding of how medical records get made, and how a patient’s symptoms can get lost between the exam room and the chart.
Brain injury claims often rise or fall on that record. A few things genuinely help:
- Get seen early. Go to the emergency department, urgent care, or your doctor after a head impact or hard jolt, even if you feel mostly fine. That first visit establishes the timeline.
- Describe the mechanism. Tell the provider exactly what happened: whether your head struck something, whether you blacked out or cannot remember parts of the event, and whether you felt dazed.
- Report every symptom, including the “small” ones. Light sensitivity, irritability, and trouble finding words are easy to leave out because they feel minor or embarrassing. If they are not in the chart, it is harder to show later that they existed.
- Follow up when things change. NINDS advises people with mild TBI to schedule a follow-up visit and to pay attention to new signs or symptoms, even if they seem unrelated to the injury. New symptoms belong in the record too.
- Keep a simple symptom log. Date, symptom, severity, and what it stopped you from doing.
- Ask people close to you to notice. A spouse, coworker, or friend who sees you forgetting appointments or losing your temper can describe changes you may not perceive yourself.
- Follow the treatment plan. Gaps in care and skipped referrals are among the first things an adjuster will point to.
If you had a prior concussion, migraines, or other conditions, tell your providers. Hiding history backfires. California law does not let you recover for a condition you already had, but if an accident made a preexisting condition worse, the jury instruction on aggravation (CACI No. 3927) directs jurors to award damages for that worsening. A separate instruction (CACI No. 3928) tells jurors to compensate the full harm even if the person was more susceptible to injury than a typical healthy person.
What a Brain Injury Claim Can Include
California’s civil jury instructions, published by the Judicial Council (CACI), describe the categories of damages a jury may award in an injury case. For a concussion or other TBI, those can include:
- Medical expenses, past and future (CACI No. 3903A): the reasonable cost of reasonably necessary care you have received, and care you are reasonably certain to need, such as neurology visits, vestibular or cognitive therapy, and neuropsychological testing.
- Lost earnings (CACI No. 3903C) and lost earning capacity (CACI No. 3903D): wages you have lost, and the reduction in your ability to earn in the future if the injury affects how you can work.
- Noneconomic damages (CACI No. 3905A): past and future physical pain, mental suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, physical impairment, inconvenience, anxiety, and emotional distress. The instruction tells jurors that no fixed standard exists for these amounts and that they must use their judgment based on the evidence.
For an invisible injury, noneconomic damages often depend on credible, consistent evidence of how your life changed. That is where the symptom log, the medical chart, and the people around you matter. We wrote more about how the different pieces of a claim fit together in how much is my car accident case worth in California.
Deadlines You Need to Know
California generally gives you two years to file a lawsuit for personal injury caused by someone else’s wrongful act or neglect (Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1). For a person who was a minor when injured, Code of Civil Procedure section 352 generally pauses that clock until they turn 18, though that tolling does not apply to claims that must first be presented to a public entity.
If a government agency may be responsible, such as a city bus or a dangerous public road, the timeline is much shorter: Government Code section 911.2 requires a claim for personal injury to be presented no later than six months after the cause of action accrues. Because concussion symptoms can unfold slowly, it is easy to lose weeks before you realize how serious things are. Talk to a lawyer well before any of these dates.
What to Do Now
If you suspect a concussion, keep copies of discharge papers, imaging reports, and referrals, and avoid giving a recorded statement to the other side’s insurer about how you feel, especially in the first days when you may not yet know. Our first-24-hours checklist, what to do after a car accident in California, covers the steps at the scene. For more on how we approach these cases, see our brain injury practice page.
Talk to Us About Your Situation
A brain injury can change how you think, work, and relate to the people you love, even when the scan looks clean and the bruises have faded. You deserve a careful look at your records and a clear explanation of your options. Contact Reardon Stodolka for a free consultation at 657.522.7122. You pay nothing unless we recover compensation for you.