What Is Considered A Catastrophic Injury In Ohio?

Hey, Brian, what's a catastrophic injury. A catastrophic injury? Well, to me, a catastrophic injury is any kind of injury that affects the quality of your life in a significant way or perhaps even the quantity of your life, how long you're going to live. But Ohio law has a very specific definition of catastrophic injury in medical malpractice cases. Ohio law specifies that catastrophic injuries are those that are permanent and substantial and cause a physical deformity or the loss of a use of a limb or the loss of a bodily organ system. So if you can't use an arm or a leg or if you lose your kidneys or both of your eyes, those would be examples of catastrophic injuries. Another category of catastrophic injuries under Ohio law is permanent functional injury. That means you can't care for yourself adequately. You can't dress yourself, bathe yourself, eat on your own, groom yourself and so forth. Those kinds of injuries are often the result of brain damage. So significant and permanent brain damage that makes it so you can't dress yourself and feed yourself. That's a functional injury and that's a catastrophic injury under Ohio law as well. And it matters whether or not you have a catastrophic injury in a medical malpractice case, and the reason it matters is because Ohio has a law which limits noneconomic damages and sets up a two tier system. Lesser injuries, which has one cap and then catastrophic injuries. That still has a cap, but it's a higher cap. So it matters whether or not your damages is the high cap or low cap. And it all depends on whether you have what is considered under Ohio law to be a catastrophic injury.