Pre-existing Conditions and Your Personal Injury Claim
There are few worse times to suffer a severe injury than after already suffering an injury. Those with pre-existing injuries can easily find themselves involved in serious accidents. These pre-existing conditions can worsen exponentially and cause significant damage to those that suffer additional injuries. By asserting a claim for personal injuries, you are putting your pre-accident health history at issue. If a lawsuit is necessary, pre-accident medical records will need to be turned over to the insurance company’s lawyers. What does your pre-accident health history have to do with the disposition of your personal injury claim? The following four scenarios explain why your pre- accident health history is relevant:
The eggshell plaintiff. Someone may have a preexisting condition that renders him more susceptible to injury. For instance, osteoarthritis would render the bones of an elderly driver more brittle and vulnerable to fracture or serious injury. However, he is no less entitled to full and fair compensation for injuries sustained in the accident even though he was peculiarly susceptible to injury because of decalcified bones. An analogy may be helpful to demonstrate the rights of an eggshell plaintiff to compensation: Consider a commercial truck loaded with hundreds of crates of eggs being transported from a rural farm to a retail outlet. The truck is rear-ended by an intoxicated motorist going 80 miles per hour. In an instant, the crates of eggs have been transformed to a huge mess. Not one egg survives the collision. In a claim by the owner of the eggs against the intoxicated motorist, the measure of damages is the value of all the eggs. It is no defense that the eggs were by nature brittle and fragile.
Resolved preexisting conditions: A victim who asserts a claim for whiplash may have had a similar cervical spine injury in the past. The earlier injury should not create a problem in resolving the current claim if symptoms from the earlier accident have been resolved. Resolution of symptoms from the earlier accident would be demonstrated by medical records and the absence of evidence that symptoms from the earlier accident continued to persist.
Unresolved preexisting conditions: The burden is on you, the claimant, to prove that the other party is both responsible for the accident and that the injuries about which you complain were caused by the accident. Failure to establish causation is fatal to your claim. The insurance company will have physicians at its disposal to review pre- and post accident medical records to determine whether evidence exists to defeat your contention that the accident was the cause of your injuries.
Exacerbation of preexisting conditions: In personal injury claims, the burden is usually on the plaintiff to distinguish between preexisting injuries and injuries caused by the accident at issue. Obviously, input from your treating physician is helpful to explain how the trauma of the accident aggravated or worsened a preexisting condition or how the symptoms caused by the accident are greater or different than those experienced prior to the accident.
Contact Our Miami Accident Attorneys Today
Did you recently get injured in a car accident? If you happen to find yourself in this situation, you probably have a lot of questions regarding insurance coverage, the insurance claims process, and what you should be doing in the days, weeks, and months after an accident. At Suarez and Montero, we have all the answers to your legal questions. We can also assist you in obtaining compensation for your injuries after a car accident if you were a passenger in the accident. Our attorneys are ready to provide proven legal representation and stand ready to protect your rights. We are available 24/7 to give you a free, no risk case consultation! At our firm, our policy is that if you don’t recover compensation, you won’t pay any fees for our services. Not to mention, we also provide free case consultations where we assess the circumstances surrounding your case and give you an objective overview of what steps you can take going forward if you decide to act against the party responsible for your injuries. For over 20 years, we have delivered quality legal representation for people who, through no fault of their own, have been injured in all types of accidents and incidents. We are available 24/7 to give you a free, no risk case consultation.
We serve clients throughout Florida including those in the following areas:
Miami-Dade: Aventura, Coral Gables, Doral, Fontainebleau, Hialeah, Homestead, Kendall, Miami, Miami Beach, Miami Lakes, North Miami, Tamiami, and Westchester.
Broward: Fort Lauderdale, Hallandale Beach, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, and Weston; and Palm Beach County including Boca Raton, Lake Worth, and West Palm Beach.
