Will Preexisting Conditions Affect Your Car Accident Claim in Massachusetts?

We often hear about preexisting medical conditions when dealing with medical care and health insurance. However, preexisting conditions might also affect a Massachusetts car accident claim. Defendants may only be held responsible for injuries caused by their negligent behavior. If certain injuries existed before a car accident, we must separate preexisting conditions from new ones.

If you were injured prior to the accident or had some other preexisting medical condition, your injuries and damages might be tangled up with it. Defendants and insurance companies do not want to pay for injuries or damages that existed before an accident, which means we may need to work on disentangling preexisting conditions from new injuries. This may be necessary whether you file an insurance claim or a civil injury lawsuit. Separating these injuries often requires examining medical records and determining how the accident might have changed or exacerbated existing injuries. If your preexisting injuries are made worse, the defendant might only be held liable for the difference.

Contact our Boston car accident attorneys at the Law Office of John J. Sheehan at (617) 925-6407 and ask for a free, confidential case review.

What Happens if You Were Injured Before a Car Accident in Massachusetts?

How our Massachusetts car accident lawyers determine what to do about preexisting injuries may depend on how much they overlap with new conditions. Perhaps the accident created new injuries in addition to preexisting ones. Perhaps the accident did not create new injuries but made existing injuries worse. In either case, the defendant may push back against your claims, arguing that your damages are not their fault because they already exist.

The defendant is likely going to argue that their liability should be minimized on account of your preexisting injuries, but we can push back. The “eggshell plaintiff” rule holds that defendants must take plaintiffs as they are. If a particular plaintiff is extremely susceptible to injuries in a way that the average person is not, that is not an excuse to reduce their liability. If your preexisting condition caused typical injuries to become worse, the defendant simply must deal with it.

According to Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 231 § 6D, drivers in Massachusetts must file claims with their no-fault auto insurance, and a civil lawsuit might only be possible if the potential plaintiff can show they meet specific legal requirements. Under the law, you must have medical expenses that exceed $2,000 or include death, fractures, loss of a body part, serious and permanent disfigurement, or loss of hearing or vision. If one or more of these injuries are present but related to a preexisting condition, you might be unable to sue.

How Your Preexisting Condition Might Affect Your Massachusetts Car Accident Claim

A preexisting medical condition tends to make a car accident claim more complicated. Insurance companies and courts want to know precisely how much of your injuries are due to the defendant’s negligence. In some cases, separating these factors is simple. In others, it is difficult, and we must be careful not to undervalue your claims.

Insurance Claims

While insurance providers often claim they are here to help customers, this is not always true. Insurance companies tend to be loyal to their bottom line over customers and may jump at any opportunity to reduce or even deny a claim. Suppose an insurance company believes some of your damages are related to a preexisting condition. In that case, they may refuse to cover that portion of your damages or deny your claim altogether.

Even no-fault insurance might deny your claim because of a preexisting condition. While you might not need to prove fault when filing a no-fault car accident claim, the insurance company will not cover damages unrelated to the car accident. For example, suppose you had a broken leg and needed to spend 3 weeks in a cast before the accident, but the injuries became worse, and now you must spend 6 weeks in a cast. In that case, your insurance company might only cover the damages for the second 3-week period; they should cover all 6 added weeks.

Civil Lawsuits

Again, you may only sue if you meet certain legal requirements, which might be hindered by preexisting conditions. Not only that, but we will need evidence of your injuries before and after the accident so we can show how much worse your injuries became after the accident. Lawsuits must meet the civil burden of proof that might not exist in an insurance claim. This means the rules regarding what kind of evidence we need and how we present it are stricter and more demanding. If you have a preexisting condition, we need to figure out how it is involved with your damages from the accident before we get to court.

Alternatively, we might show how your preexisting condition has nothing to do with the injuries caused by the defendant. Maybe you had a broken leg before the crash, but your leg was unchanged in the accident. The defendant might try to raise the issue of a preexisting condition in the hopes of reducing their liability, but we need proof that your broken leg is irrelevant and should not be used to reduce your damages.

On the other hand, we might point to the eggshell plaintiff rule. Your preexisting injuries or condition might have made you extra susceptible to new injuries, leading to injuries and damages that are worse than average. In such a case, the defendant should be held responsible for all your damages, as they must take the plaintiff as they are.

How Preexisting Conditions Might Affect Fault in a Massachusetts Car Accident Claim

Did the accident happen because someone has a preexisting condition? If so, the presence of such a condition might not only make determining damages more complex, but it might also make determining fault much harder.

For example, someone with diabetes might have low blood sugar, causing them to pass out while driving. You or the other driver might have a seizure condition that causes you to lose control of the car and crash. Information about a preexisting condition might shed light on how an accident occurred.

Alternatively, a defendant might be held responsible even if a plaintiff’s preexisting condition contributed to the accident. For example, if someone walks in a boot because they have an injured ankle and slips on an icy walkway, the property owner might still be liable. It is reasonably foreseeable that an injured or disabled person might walk by, and the defendant should be prepared.

If you know about a preexisting condition that makes driving unsafe yet choose to drive anyway, you might have a hard time avoiding blame for the accident. Similarly, if the defendant made such a choice, we might have an easier time having them held liable.

Speak to Our Massachusetts Car Accident Lawyers About Your Preexisting Conditions

Contact our Massachusetts personal injury attorneys at the Law Office of John J. Sheehan at (617) 925-6407 and ask for a free, confidential case review.