A Golf Ball, a Brain Injury Claim and a $9 Million Life Care Plan: Why Pre-Incident Records Matter

A traumatic brain injury claim that grows into a psychiatric injury claim is one of the hardest causation questions in personal injury work. The damages can be enormous. The proof depends on what the person’s mental health looked like before the incident, and that answer lives in records that are often years old and spread across many providers. A recent Florida defense verdict shows how much weight those older records can carry.

The case

According to defense counsel’s published account, a woman was eating lunch on the patio of a resort restaurant in Miami-Dade County with a view of two putting greens. An errant golf ball struck her on the side of the head. She sued the resort claiming the course was badly laid out and kept up, and that guests should have been warned, arguing that a ball strike on that patio was foreseeable. Her husband brought a loss of consortium claim.

Her injury claim went far beyond the impact itself. She alleged a traumatic brain injury that led to bipolar disorder with psychotic episodes and post-traumatic stress disorder. Her counsel presented a $9 million life care plan and asked for about $11 million more in noneconomic damages.

The resort, represented by Wicker Smith and co-counsel retained by its excess carrier, took the position that nothing was wrong with the layout or upkeep, that no guest had been hit and hurt by a ball there before, and that the law imposed no warning obligation on these facts. The defense also used her own chart and its medical experts to argue that her bipolar symptoms, psychotic episodes, PTSD, cognitive decline and memory complaints did not come from a brain injury and had started before the incident.

The trial ran eight days. Jurors cleared the resort entirely. Defense counsel reports that the plaintiff turned down several chances to settle before and during trial.

What the verdict does and does not tell us

The jury decided this case on liability, so it never had to rule on whether the golf ball caused her psychiatric condition. Still, the medical evidence shaped the whole trial. A jury weighing foreseeability while also hearing that the major diagnoses predated the incident is hearing a very different case from the one the plaintiff opened with. It also likely shaped the settlement talks that never closed.

Why TBI to psychiatric illness is a real but contested link

I trained and worked as a physician assistant before law school. Head injury and later psychiatric illness are connected in the medical literature, and attorneys on both sides should start there. A Danish nationwide study of more than 113,000 people with head injuries, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2014, found higher rates of later schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder and organic mental disorders compared with people without head injury. For bipolar disorder, the increase was about 28 percent.

That is population data, though. It does not prove what happened to one person. In an individual case, the causation opinion has to deal with:

• Whether a brain injury happened at all. The emergency record, any loss of consciousness or amnesia, Glasgow Coma Scale scores, imaging and the first neurological exams matter more than anything charted months later.
• Timing. When the first psychiatric symptoms appear in the records, compared with the date of the incident.
• Prior history. Earlier psychiatric diagnoses, medications, hospitalizations, counseling notes and even primary care entries mentioning mood, sleep or memory.
• Aggravation versus new injury. Florida, like most states, allows recovery when an incident worsens a condition that already existed. A plaintiff with a prior history may still have a strong aggravation claim, but only if the experts frame it that way from the start rather than claiming a brand new illness.
• Testing validity. Neuropsychological testing should include performance validity measures. Opposing counsel will ask about them.

The records I would pull before anyone commits to a theory

1. EMS and emergency department records from the day of the incident, including the triage note and any head CT.
2. Every follow-up visit in the first 90 days, from primary care, urgent care, neurology and concussion clinics.
3. At least ten years of prior medical records, with pharmacy records to show past psychiatric prescriptions.
4. Prior mental health treatment, including inpatient stays, therapy notes and employee assistance program records where obtainable.
5. Imaging films and reports, not just summaries, so a neuroradiologist can review them.
6. Neuropsychological testing raw data and validity scores.
7. Work, school and disability records showing how the person functioned before and after.

Plaintiff’s counsel should collect these first, before the defense does. Finding an old diagnosis in your own file gives you time to build an aggravation theory. Finding it on cross-examination does not.

The experts a brain injury and psychiatric damages case usually needs

• A neurologist or brain injury physician on whether a TBI occurred and how severe it was.
• A neuropsychologist for testing, validity measures and cognitive findings.
• A forensic psychiatrist on diagnosis, onset and whether the incident caused or worsened the condition.
• A neuroradiologist when imaging findings are disputed.
• A life care planner whose plan is tied to documented diagnoses and treating provider recommendations, so it holds up when the causation picture is challenged.

Each opinion has to be stated to a reasonable degree of medical certainty and grounded in the full record, including the parts that cut against the client.

How Med Legal Pro helps

Med Legal Pro matches attorneys with screened, litigation-trained physician, nurse and allied health experts in medical malpractice, personal injury, nursing home and long-term care, and wrongful death cases. We work with plaintiff, defense and criminal attorneys, and every expert we place is trained to write opinions that hold up under scrutiny from opposing counsel.

Call 844-633-5345 or submit your case at medlegalpro.com/submit-a-case.

Sources

• Wicker, Smith, O’Hara, McCoy & Ford, P.A. Defense Verdict: Premises Liability (Miami-Dade County, FL). October 2026.
• Orlovska S, Pedersen MS, Benros ME, et al. Head injury as risk factor for psychiatric disorders: a nationwide register-based follow-up study of 113,906 persons with head injury. Am J Psychiatry. 2014;171(4):463-469. PubMed.

This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or medical advice.