Personal Injury – Preexisting Injuries and Conditions

“Bad things happen to good people.”  But, what if they happen twice?  You suffer an injury, and while healing you have an accident.  Or, you have a medical condition worsened by an accident.  Preexisting injuries and conditions are not as unusual as you might think.

Basic Law on Preexisting Injuries and Conditions

A person with a medical condition that is worsened by another person’s negligence can hold the other person responsible for any aggravation caused by the accident.  The negligent party, or defendant in a law suit, can be held responsible for any aggravation of a prior injury or condition that is caused by the accident.

In any law suit, the person who has been injured, the plaintiff, bears the burden of proof.  They must prove that a defendant’s negligent conduct caused damages.   So, the question for a court, or an insurance company in considering settlement, is: “Was the defendant’s negligence a cause of harm that would not have occurred without the accident?”

For example, take a middle aged person with degenerative disc disease, who may have had a backache here and there, but never enough to warrant going to a doctor.  They are sitting waiting for a red light when someone babbling on the cell phone plows into the back of the car, destroying the car and sending the driver to the hospital.  Fortunately nothing is broken.  But, the driver is in severe pain and requires months of physical therapy or other treatment before they can be considered close to normal.

How Preexisting Injuries are Misused

Insurance claims adjusters will point to the hospital x-rays. “Nothing is broken.  Look, the person had degenerative disc disease.”  Insurance company attorneys blow these x-rays up and point them out to the jury: “Look, this person already had back problems.”

The injured person must prove that the defendant’s conduct caused the claimed damages.  The issue is whether the defendant’s negligent conduct in slamming into the back of the car is a factual cause in bringing about the plaintiff’s injuries.  The injured person might have had degenerative issues before, but never required treatment.

Post-accident treatment, medical bills and even the likelihood of possible surgery in the future directly result from the accident.  But, medical evidence must link the injuries to the negligence by the correct legal standard of causation.  Failing this, insurance company efforts to “muddy up” the issue by pointing out the previous condition might carry the day.

Key Legal Element of Causation

Proving causation is often overlooked by the uninitiated.  Jury instructions and insurance company “independent” medical examinations can confuse.  Here is one actual jury instruction:

“Negligent conduct is a factual cause of harm when the harm would not have occurred absent the conduct.   An act is a factual cause of an outcome if, in the absence of the act, the outcome would not have occurred.”

Preexisting injuries and conditions don’t stop injured people from making a claim for aggravation of an already existing condition.  But, treacherous efforts to “muddy up” reality require proper medical evidence and the attention of an experienced attorney who has been down this road before.

More personal injury topics in these blog articles.

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