A rebuilt joint works — but it may not work the way the original one did. That difference isn’t just a feeling. It can be measured, documented, and proven, and it may continue to affect your life long after your case would otherwise have been considered over.
If you’ve undergone a ligament reconstruction, tendon repair, joint surface restoration, or total joint replacement, you already know surgery isn’t the finish line. What that joint can do in the future – it’s stability, range of motion, strength, hardware performance, and how the joint responds under stress are questions a discharge summary can’t answer — but they’re exactly the questions that decide what your claim is worth.
If you or a family member suffered an orthopedic injury in Macon, Warner Robins, or anywhere in Middle Georgia, Gautreaux Law brings more than 25 years of Georgia personal injury experience to orthopedic injury claims. The firm has recovered over $100 million for clients across a range of personal injury matters.
The word orthopedic covers most of what a body can break or tear, so the boundaries here are drawn deliberately.
This page is about reconstruction and mechanical function: major structural tears repaired surgically, joints that were replaced, and instability that can be measured rather than described. Knees, shoulders, hips, ankles, elbows, and wrists.
Fractures run on their own page: the weight of a fracture claim comes from the healing course, and that is set out on our broken bones page. Where a fracture ran into a joint surface, the fracture and its healing stay on our broken bones page; this page picks up where the joint itself had to be rebuilt.
Soft tissue injuries that heal without reconstruction are a different documentary problem and are covered on our soft tissue injury page.
Spinal injuries run on neurological findings rather than joint mechanics and are covered on our spine injury page. Neck injuries from the acceleration and deceleration of a collision run on our whiplash page.
Surgery is a treatment, not a conclusion: published guidance from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons is direct that an operation does not guarantee the result, and that implanted hardware can shift, loosen, or break. A claim closed at the point of a successful operation is closed before the operation has been tested.
Hardware has a relationship with the body: plates, screws, anchors, and prosthetic components can become symptomatic. Some are removed in a second procedure. Some stay without ever being noticed. Where a person does report that they feel it under load or at the end of a shift, that is a finding for the treating record rather than a general rule about implants.
Replaced joints raise a question about later surgery: a joint replacement in a younger person raises the possibility of revision, which is a second operation with its own recovery and its own risk. Whether it will be needed, and when, is a question for qualified medical opinion rather than an assumption a claim can carry on its own.
Instability is measurable, and that cuts both ways: where a joint is objectively unstable on examination, that is strong evidence. Where it is not, a claim resting on the description of instability alone is weaker, and knowing which situation applies is part of valuing the case honestly.
The joint surface predicts the future: where cartilage was damaged or a fracture ran into the articular surface, the questions about that joint can continue for years. That is documented through follow-up rather than asserted at the outset.
Orthopedic claims carry more measurable evidence than most injury work. Measurable is not the same as objective in every respect: range of motion depends partly on effort, and strength testing depends on cooperation. What can be said is that these are clinician-recorded findings taken repeatedly over time, and a consistent series is harder to argue with than a description.
Measurements, not adjectives: range of motion in degrees, strength grades, girth measurements, and the specific movements that produce pain or giving way. These are recorded by clinicians in ordinary care, and they are the backbone of the claim.
Operative findings: what the surgeon actually saw is often more informative than what the imaging predicted, and the operative report is the document that says so.
Therapy records: a physical therapy course is a running log of what a person could do week by week. It is usually the most detailed functional record in the file, and it is easy to leave unused.
Work capacity: a functional capacity evaluation, where the case warrants it, translates limitation into terms an employer and an adjuster both understand.
Comparison to the other side: for a paired joint, the uninjured limb offers a comparison, and the difference between the two is measured rather than described. It is a strong reference point, not a perfect one.
What the person actually does now: measurements taken in a clinic describe a joint at rest and on command. What matters to a claim is what happens on the eighth hour of a shift, on a ladder, or carrying a child up stairs. That gap between clinical measurement and lived function is where these claims are usually undersold, and closing it takes specifics.
Degeneration: imaging of an adult joint can show changes that predate any accident, and an existing finding is not the same as an existing symptom. The question is what the person could do before and what they can do now, and that is answered from records and from people who knew them. Georgia law has a rule that answers that argument directly. A defendant is liable for the aggravation of a preexisting condition, and the tortfeasor takes the injured person as found, so a plaintiff whose joint was already more vulnerable than an average person’s is not for that reason entitled to less. The measure is the change the incident produced, not the condition it acted on. What the rule does not do is relieve the plaintiff of proving the change, which is why the before-and-after record carries the point rather than the doctrine.
The successful surgery: a repair that went well gets used as evidence there is nothing left. What answers it is the measured function afterward and what the treating surgeon expects going forward.
A gap in therapy: rehabilitation is demanding and it is often expensive. Where someone stopped, the reason belongs in the record, whether it was cost, transportation, work, or a provider who discharged them.
The mechanism: whether this force could have caused this tear is a legitimate question and sometimes a genuine one. It is answered by the treating providers and, where the dispute warrants the cost, by an independent opinion.
Age: an older claimant’s joint will show wear, and that gets offered as the explanation for everything. It is not an answer on its own. A joint that worked well enough to do a job last year and does not now has changed, and when it changed is the question.
The functional record is built while it is still being created: therapy notes, serial measurements, and operative reports are gathered as they are generated rather than requested in a bundle after a demand is made.
A case that arrives after surgery is not a case that arrived late: where the operative report, the therapy course, and the post-surgical measurements already exist, the record is often stronger than one built in the first weeks. What matters is that it gets read before anything is demanded.
Future procedures are established before the claim closes, or they are not in it: where hardware removal, revision, or a later replacement is anticipated, it should be supported by qualified medical evidence, stated case-specifically and with the degree of certainty the claim requires. The treating surgeon is often the natural source because of direct knowledge of the patient, but what matters legally is that the opinion is qualified and supported, not which professional role it came from. A claim that assumes a future operation nobody has supported is a claim a defense expert will take apart. Georgia measures that by a standard rather than by plausibility. Future medical expenses and diminished future earning capacity are recoverable where the evidence shows them to be reasonably certain to be incurred, and O.C.G.A. § 51-12-9 confirms that damages must be traced to a legal injury and cannot rest on speculation. The supporting expert testimony has to satisfy O.C.G.A. § 24-7-702(b), which requires sufficient facts or data, reliable principles and methods, and a reliable application of those methods to the facts.
Work restrictions are treated as evidence, not paperwork: lifting limits, overhead restrictions, and time-on-feet limits written by a treating provider are treated as evidence of capacity, and how they map onto any particular job is its own question in the analysis. Where light duty was offered, whether it existed in practice matters as much as whether it existed on paper.
Trial-ready preparation: an orthopedic dispute is a dispute about measurements and about what a joint will do in ten years, and that record is assembled the same way for an adjuster and for a courtroom. Gautreaux Law has tried cases in courts across Georgia, including Bibb County and other Middle Georgia jurisdictions.
Serious orthopedic injuries are part of the firm’s catastrophic injury practice. Most reach this office from vehicle collisions, which run on the questions in any car accident claim, and from falls on property, which run as slip and fall claims. That premises duty is O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1, and the limitation period for both routes is two years from the date of injury under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33. It runs from the injury rather than from the surgery, the diagnosis, or the point at which the permanence became clear, which is why a case that is still medically unsettled at twenty months has to be filed rather than waited out.
The firm’s published results come from automobile and commercial vehicle collision work. None of them is presented as an orthopedic case. They are listed with their exact labels and each turned on its own facts.
| Recovery | Case Type | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| $10.5 Million | Automobile Accident, Governmental Liability | Traumatic Brain Injury |
| $1.5 Million | Commercial Van Collision | Wrongful Death |
| $400,000 | Car Wreck | Leg Amputation |
| $180,000 | Car Wreck | Brain Injury |
Each case is different and depends on its specific facts and circumstances. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. These figures represent gross recoveries before deduction of fees and expenses.
Not necessarily. A repair that went well is sometimes used by insurance companies as evidence that nothing is left to compensate. What actually answers that argument is your measured function afterward and what your treating surgeon expects going forward — range of motion, strength, stability, and whether hardware or a future procedure is anticipated. A successful surgery is a treatment milestone, not proof the case is over.
No. Imaging of an adult joint can show changes that predate any accident, but an existing finding on a scan is not the same as an existing symptom. The question is what you could do before the collision and what you can do now, and that is answered through records and through the people who knew you, not through the imaging alone.
It depends on the joint and the injury. A joint replacement, especially in a younger person, can raise the possibility of a future revision surgery. Whether that is likely, and when, has to come from qualified medical opinion, usually the treating surgeon, and it has to be supported case-specifically before it is included in a claim’s value.
Nothing up front. We handle these cases on a contingency fee, so you pay no attorney’s fees unless we recover money for you.
Georgia’s general statute of limitations for personal injury claims is two years from the date of injury, though certain circumstances can shorten or extend that window. Because orthopedic claims often depend on how a joint performs over months of recovery, the sooner we’re involved, the better we can build the record while it is being created.
If you or a family member suffered an orthopedic injury in Macon, Warner Robins, or anywhere in Georgia, Gautreaux Law’s personal injury attorneys will review your case at no cost. The firm handles these cases on a contingency fee, which means no fee unless we recover. Reach our office at (478) 475-3428 or request a free case review online.
“No fee unless we recover” refers only to attorney’s fees. Court costs and other case expenses are typically advanced by our firm and reimbursed from any recovery. Contingent fee arrangements are not permitted in all types of cases. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is different and depends on its specific facts and circumstances.
This page is general information and is not medical advice. Surgical and treatment decisions belong with your treating providers. Statements about surgical outcomes and hardware reflect published guidance from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Reviewed by the attorneys at Gautreaux Law, Attorneys at Law. Last updated July 2026.
"*" indicates required fields
778 Mulberry Street
Macon, GA 31201
