The phrase “preexisting condition” is often scary because people know that it often has a bad legal effect. That is often a holdover from discussions about health insurance coverage, and the rules for injury lawsuits and liability insurance claims are often quite a bit different.
Injury claims can only pay for the injuries obtained in the accident at hand, not prior injuries or medical conditions. That means that you need to separate out what came from this accident versus what is a preexisting condition. This might not be a big deal, depending on the facts of your case, and a preexisting condition or disability might even help you show how the defendant failed to keep you safe.
For a free case review, call Schoenfeld Law Firm’s Lafayette, LA personal injury attorneys at (504) 688-7760 today.
Does a Preexisting Injury Stop You from Filing an Injury Case?
Having a preexisting condition or prior injury in no way stops you from filing an injury case. That would be disability discrimination if that were allowed.
Just because you have cancer or are already in a wheelchair doesn’t stop you from vindicating your rights when you suffer a new injury in an accident.
How a Preexisting Condition or Prior Injury Affects Your Injury Claim
When you get hurt, you can sue, but you can only sue for the injuries you sustained in that accident.
Defendants will often try to say that your injuries were preexisting; that they were there before this accident even occurred. If that were true, then you would be blocked from getting damages in this injury case.
That doesn’t always hurt your case, but it does have two major effects:
We Have to Break Down What Was Preexisting and What Came from This Accident
Since you can only sue for the damages from this accident, our Louisiana personal injury lawyers have to show which disabilities, injuries, and other negative effects came from this accident versus which are older.
For example, imagine you have a broken leg that’s been healing, then you fall in a store and re-break your leg. You cannot sue the store for the damages from the initial break, but you can sue for the second break, the extended healing time, the additional medical care needs, etc.
Medical records from before and after the accident, plus testimony about your health and condition before the accident, can help draw these lines.
We Have to Prove Worsened Condition or Additional Damages
In your new accident/injury case, we can sue for any of the damages this accident caused. That typically comes in two forms:
- Suing for new injuries when the previous injury is unrelated. g., if you have a cast on your leg, then you slip and fall in a store and break your arm.
- Suing for worsening of your prior conditions. g., if you already had a broken leg, but you re-break it and require surgery this time.
In both cases, there are some harms you face that are not from the new injury, such as medical bills that were already in place, work you were already going to miss, and everyday pain and suffering you already felt.
We therefore have to show how your situation was worse, how you lost more time at work, how you face worsened daily pain, how you will miss more work, etc.
Do Prior Injuries and Preexisting Conditions Affect Fault?
In personal injury law, there is a rule called the “eggshell skull rule.” It takes an imaginary plaintiff with a skull so fragile that it’s like an eggshell and proposes that the person who breaks that skull by accident would still be liable for the victim’s injuries, even if someone with a “normal” skull wouldn’t have been hurt.
The Rule
This results in the principle that whatever condition the plaintiff is in, you take them as you find them. That means you cannot base damages on what a “normal” person might face, but what this defendant actually faced.
Foreseeability
Defendants can only be made to pay for foreseeable injuries, and they may argue that they could not foresee that someone with a preexisting condition would be more vulnerable to injury. This argument doesn’t work; the accident itself is foreseeable, so the defendant has to pay the damages from it regardless of how severe.
Reasonableness
Most injury cases hold defendants responsible when their actions were unreasonable in the given situation. This does not give them leeway to cut corners to make it just safe enough for a “regular” person but not safe enough for a disabled or injured person.
For example, if you fell because of a slippery floor in a store, it would not be okay for the store workers to mop just enough that a healthy adult would be okay but an older adult or someone on crutches would still slip.
FAQs for Preexisting Conditions in Injury Claims
What Does it Mean for Insurance Not to Cover a Preexisting Condition
The question of whether insurance covers a preexisting condition isn’t an injury question; it’s a health insurance question. Liability insurance – the insurance that pays to cover accidents – does not get to choose whether it covers a victim with a preexisting condition or not.
They must cover everyone their policyholder injures, as long as the policy covers the accident.
Can Insurance Deny Injury Coverage Because of a Preexisting Condition?
It would be discrimination for an insurance company to deny covering your injuries because of a preexisting health condition. However, they can deny you if they think your current injuries were all there before the accident in question.
How Do I Prove My Injury Wasn’t Preexisting?
When you get medical care, the doctor can note how fresh the injuries are. They can also testify in court or send a report explaining that the injuries they examined after your accident were brand new. This helps tie the injuries to this accident case.
We can also provide medical records from before the accident to show there was no record of the injury before the accident happened.
How Do I Get the Medical Records I Need?
You should seek immediate medical care after an injury to help create records and documentation of the injury, its severity, how long it might last, etc. Our attorneys can also help you find various specialists who can prepare reports for your injury case to separate out what injuries/conditions were old and what injuries/conditions are new.
Call Our Personal Injury Attorneys in Louisiana Today
If you were hurt in an accident, call the New Orleans, LA personal injury lawyers at Schoenfeld Law Firm at (504) 688-7760 today.
