Preexisting Injuries and Your Maryland Car Accident Claim

You’re driving along when a careless driver hits you. You go to the emergency room and get a clean bill of health. But the next morning, you feel pain in your back. You hurt your back in the same place during a work accident a few years back. If the car accident reinjured your back, can you recover for your medical bills? 

Several legal rules apply to injuries that occurred before a car accident. (Lawyers call these pre-existing injuries.) This article will explain what pre-existing injuries are and how they can affect your car accident claim. It will also explain how a Laurel personal injury attorney can help. 

What Is a Preexisting Injury or Condition?

Car accidents can create several issues. First, they can create new injuries. Breaking your arm in a car accident when you’d never had a broken arm counts as a new injury. 

However, some people have pre-existing injuries. These are injuries that happened well before the car accident. Common preexisting injuries include: 

• Arthritis 
• Degenerative disc disease 
• Slipped or herniated discs 
• Prior orthopedic surgeries or injuries 
• Chronic pain 

An accident can aggravate or worsen an existing injury.

Can People with Preexisting Injuries Recover Compensation in Maryland?

Generally, yes. Maryland law recognizes a special rule called the “eggshell plaintiff” rule. (The plaintiff is the person who is injured.) 

The eggshell plaintiff rule works like this: A man hits two people in the head with a hammer. One has a normal skull. Due to a rare disease, the other’s skull is as thin as an eggshell. The person with the thin skull sues. The man with the hammer tries to argue that he should only have to pay for the damage that a person with a normal skull would have suffered. The eggshell plaintiff rule says that if you injure someone, you have to accept them exactly as they are. So, the man with the hammer will have to pay for all of the injuries he caused, both normal and unique. 

The eggshell plaintiff rule means that, generally speaking, if you have preexisting conditions, the person who hit you is responsible for any new injuries as well as the worsening of any preexisting conditions. 

How Do Preexisting Injuries Affect Accident Claims in Maryland?

To answer this question, we’ll have to start by explaining what negligence is. To prove negligence, the injured person must show they were injured. Then, they must prove that: 

• The person who hurt them had a duty to act in a certain way or take a certain action, 
• The person who hurt them did not perform the required action, and 
• The injury that they suffered was caused by the person’s failure to take the required action. 

In preexisting injury cases, the debate usually centers on causation. The other driver’s insurance company will likely argue that the accident did very little to aggravate your injury. Or, they’ll claim that your injury would have gotten worse even without the accident. 

You can fight back against these claims. The most important thing you can do is to seek medical care immediately after the accident. Even if your symptoms don’t show up immediately, seeking early medical care will make it easier for doctors to track your injuries. Be completely honest about your symptoms and any preexisting injuries. 

Also, your medical records can show that your preexisting condition was made worse by the accident. For example, a woman has a history of back pain that has been successfully treated with medication for several years. After the car accident, she needs surgery and physical therapy. The change in treatment after the crash suggests the accident worsened the injury. 

What Types of Compensation Can I Get for an Aggravated Preexisting Injury? 

If you can prove that the driver who hit you was negligent, you may be entitled to damages. Your damages should cover the cost of any new injuries as well as the cost of treating the aggravation of the existing injury. In Maryland car accident cases, injured people typically receive funds to cover their: 

• Past and future medical bills 
• Lost wages
• Lost future earning capacity 
• Pain and suffering 

Talk to your Laurel car accident attorney about which types of damages are most appropriate in your case. 

Get a Laurel Car Accident Lawyer to Help You with Preexisting Injury Claims

Car accidents can create new injuries or aggravate old ones. If a car crash made an existing injury flare up again, you have the right to compensation. A Laurel car accident attorney can help you protect this right by gathering the appropriate medical records and hiring medical experts to connect the aggravated symptoms to the accident. 

If you need legal representation for new or preexisting injuries after a Maryland car accident, the Law Offices of Thomas E. Pyles can help. We go the extra mile at every step to ensure that our clients get the best possible results. To learn more about how we can help your family, call 301-705-5006 or use our online contact form.