After a car accident, the first thing your car accident injury lawyer needs to know to create a comprehensive case is “how stable was your previous injury before the crash?” While this might seem like a simple question, it is actually a loaded statement that can determine the strategy and sometimes the outcome of your car accident injury case. Even just offhandedly mentioning a prior history of something like back pain, old sports injuries, or a degenerative condition, a red flag will go off in your adjuster’s mind. Their job is to immediately prove that your condition is merely a random flare-up and not connected in any way to the accident. At Maida Law Firm, our job is to combat the adjusters and prove that this “pre-existing injury” is false in order to gain you maximum compensation and prove accurate fault.
Use this blog as your personal injury lawyer guide to how we prove aggravation after a car accident to optimize your final payout.
The Pre-Existing Condition and the Personal Injury Defense
Before your personal injury lawyer can fight for you, the first step of this process is understanding your opponent’s terms. When it comes to personal injury or Houston car accident cases, “pre-existing conditions” are simply defined as any health issue from before the crash, whether that be a case of chronic back pain or a successfully healed fracture from a decade ago. Past history isn’t just a minor detail; it is what details their entire case against you. Because of this, learning the insurance company’s playbook and the strategies they use is not just helpful, it’s non-negotiable.
A pre-existing condition encompasses numerous injuries, but personal injury cases most commonly cite the following primary issues:
- Degenerative Disc Disease (DDD)
- Previous sports injuries, including ACL tears or concussions
- Chronic migraines
- Old, fully healed fractures
Crucially, these injuries serve as a key asset in your personal injury case, even when they lack major severity. Many times, even minor “wear-and-tear”, common health issues can be used by the defense.
Insurance Company Tactics: How They Deny Aggravation Claims
When it comes to insurance company strategy, the primary factor is creating doubt. These insurance adjusters are expertly skilled at using very specific legal and medically oriented arguments in order to diminish the link between the accident and your pain. The three most common tactics they use include:
- Denial of causation
- Minimal aggravation
- Natural progression
In a denial of causation, the defense argues that all your current symptoms stem solely from the old injury, not the recent accident. The second tactic, minimal aggravation, means they will concede that the accident may have caused a “temporary flare-up”, although it was not directly related to the accident. This can significantly decrease the value of the aggravation, in turn minimizing your potential payout. Lastly, the third tactic is natural progression. This means that the insurance adjusters will blame the worsening condition on the natural, completely normal aging process. They may argue that your degenerative disc disease (DDD) was simply destined to happen anyway.
When it comes to threatening the insurance company’s tactic, transparency is a major key. Because of this, sharing any and all pre-existing injuries with your personal injury lawyer at Maida Law Firm is the biggest aspect of proving full aggravation.
Your Personal Injury Shield: The Eggshell Skull Rule
The absolute largest factor in your personal injury lawyer’s case and proving aggravation is something called the eggshell skull rule. This is a legal doctrine that holds a defendant liable for the full extent of a plaintiff’s unforeseeable and uncommon reactions to the defendant’s negligent or intentional tort. This rule, at its core, underscores that the at-fault party must bear responsibility for the resulting harm, even if the victim lacked perfect health before the accident. The rule gets its name because the negligent party bears 100% liability for the victim’s injuries, even if the victim had an “eggshell skull” and a healthy person would not have suffered the catastrophic harm.
This rule means that the defendant is liable not only for the severity of the pre-existing injury, but also for the increase in that injury. While the original injury may not be severe or liable, the friction or awakening of the past injury that the crash caused is liable.
Proving Personal Injury Causation
While the eggshell rule secures every plaintiff’s right to compensation, your personal injury lawyer and their strategy are what win you the most optimal compensation package. The bridge of causation requires your personal injury lawyer to use highly specific medical evidence to demonstrate that the car accident worsened your condition. The evidence contains the biggest element in this part of the process. Proving causation requires more than a feeling of pain; it demands clearly cited medical evidentiary support.
Your personal injury lawyer will do this by establishing the “before” baseline. Well-documented medical history data reveals nuanced, detailed aspects of your health that the accident changed. The focus is on function, not just a diagnosis. For example, if you had a herniated disc before the accident, but were still able to golf every evening, then being unable to partake in activities like golf after the accident would be a huge indicator of causation.
The final piece of this puzzle is finding a treating physician to help provide evidence in the form of visual imagery, such as MRIs or X-rays. This helps by providing indisputable evidence of a significant or even minor change in your health.
5 Pieces of Essential Evidence Your Lawyer Needs
In order to win an aggravation claim, there are five key pieces of evidence you need to secure the maximum compensation. The five things to remember are:
- A comprehensive pre-accident medical record
- A journal of pain and specific symptoms
- Key witness testimonies of your function
- Employment record or loss of earning capacity logs
- Expert medical testimony
Once you’ve located or created these logs, they can play a major role in your personal injury lawyer’s strategy. When it comes to proving aggravation, evidence plays the most important role, so missing even one of these categories can have severe effects on the compensation package.
Don’t Concede Your Rights In Your Aggravation Case
Now that you understand both the insurance adjuster’s number one strategy, as well as the baseline legal rules that can help protect your rights, the final key is choosing a personal injury lawyer to fight for you. At Maida Law Firm, our team of personal injury car accident lawyers is highly skilled at using tried and true strategies to prove aggravation and secure optimal compensation packages. Don’t give in and concede to insurance adjusters; let us fight for you. Contact Maida Law Firm today to get in touch with a Houston personal injury lawyer.