Pre-existing injuries can actually help your Seattle personal injury case if you have a “low impact case”. The reason for this is because pre-existing injuries actually make it so someone may be more likely to be injured in a car accident where there is little or no damage where other people would not have been injured.
The key in using pre-existing injuries in a Seattle car accident injury case is determined by your Seattle personal injury lawyer but it often comes down to these things: type of injury and active treatment.
They type of injury suffered in the low impact case must be similar to the pre-existing injury that you suffered before this Seattle car accident injury case. This means that if you had neck surgery, you must now have another neck injury that is similar to the previous type of injury. In this scenario a pre-existing neck injury could not work for a now right knee or low back injury suffered in the low impact case.
In low impact cases with pre-existing injuries, the treatment for the pre-existing injury should have been completed or very minimal at the time of impact in the car accident for it to be effective. If someone has completed treatment for their neck surgery and now suffer similar type pain after the car accident that they were not experiencing right before the car accident, insurance companies will accept the low impact case as causing the injury suffered. However, if treatment was still the same following the car accident as it was before, it will be tougher to show an exacerbation of a previous pre-existing injury and link it to this car accident.
If you have been injured in a car accident call Andrew Cherin today at 2068506716 or email me at [email protected].