If you have a pre-existing condition that gets aggravated in a car accident, you can still recover compensation through an auto insurance claim in Alabama. The at-fault driver’s insurer may try to convince you that your prior injury takes the claim off the table. It doesn’t, and with an experienced attorney on your side you can push back.
Do you have questions about a car accident settlement involving an aggravated pre-existing condition? Contact Collins Law, LLC, for a free consultation with a Birmingham car accident lawyer. We’ll review the details of your case and help you understand what you could recover.
Can You File a Claim If You Have a Pre-Existing Injury?
Yes. A prior injury does not bar a car accident claim in Alabama. What you recover is compensation for the way the crash changed your condition, not for the condition you already had.
This is because Alabama follows the “Eggshell Skull Rule,” also known as the “Eggshell Plaintiff Rule.” The rule holds that an at-fault party must take the injured person as they find them. A defendant does not get a discount because the person they hit was more fragile than average.
That principle has a limit worth understanding, because it is where most disputes in these cases live. The at-fault driver is responsible for the harm their crash caused, which includes making an existing problem worse. They are not responsible for the underlying condition itself. If your back was already hurting before the crash, you recover for the change, not for the years of pain that came before it.
There is one variation that often works in an injured person’s favor. If a condition was dormant and causing you no symptoms at all, an arthritic spine you never knew about, for instance, and the crash brought it to life, the resulting condition is generally treated as harm the crash caused.
Here is the simplest version. Say you previously broke your arm and it was still healing when you got into a car accident. If your arm re-breaks, the at-fault party cannot escape liability by pointing at the earlier break. The collision caused the re-break, even if your arm was more susceptible to it than someone else’s would have been.
Tell Your Lawyer and Your Doctor About the Prior Injury Right Away
This is the most important thing on this page, and it is the opposite of what instinct suggests.
Do not minimize or leave out a prior injury. The insurance company will find it. Once a claim is filed, it will request your medical records, and prior treatment for the same body part is exactly what its reviewers look for first. A prior injury that you disclosed is a fact your lawyer can work with. A prior injury the insurer discovers after you said there wasn’t one becomes an argument about your credibility, and credibility is much harder to repair than a medical record is to explain.
The same goes for your treating doctors. Tell them what the body part felt like before the crash and what it feels like now. That comparison is the evidence your claim runs on, and it only exists if someone writes it down.
What Is Considered a Pre-Existing Condition?
Most pre-existing conditions relevant to car accident cases are musculoskeletal, including:
- Broken bones
- Soft tissue damage
- Back injuries
- Neck injuries
Degenerative conditions belong on that list too, and they come up constantly. Degenerative disc disease, arthritis, spinal stenosis, and bulging discs are common in adults who feel perfectly fine, and most people have no idea they have them until an MRI after a crash shows up on a screen.
Expect the insurance company to point at those findings and argue that your pain is just age, not the collision. The answer is usually in the timeline. A degenerative finding that produced no symptoms for years and started hurting the week of the crash tells a very different story than the image alone does.
When an individual sustains a musculoskeletal injury, they are also more likely to sustain similar injuries in the future. For example, if you suffered a serious ankle sprain in the past, you are more likely to sprain that ankle again because of the way ligaments and tendons heal.
The Eggshell Skull Rule is why that history doesn’t sink your claim. You can still recover after a whiplash injury in a rear-end collision even though you had a prior neck problem. If whiplash is what you’re dealing with, our post on how dangerous whiplash can be covers what these injuries actually involve.
How a Car Accident Can Aggravate Pre-Existing Injuries
It helps to be specific about what aggravation means, because “my back got worse” is not something an adjuster pays for. Aggravation may include:
- Increased pain and suffering
- Decreased mobility and functionality
- The need for more extensive medical treatment
- The prolonging of your recovery from a prior injury
For example, say you had an existing back injury from lifting heavy objects at work. In a rear-end collision, the force of the impact could compress your spine further, leading to more severe pain and potentially the need for surgery that wasn’t on the table before.
How to Prove an Aggravation of a Pre-Existing Condition
Proving that the crash aggravated your pre-existing condition involves gathering significant medical evidence. The primary source will be your medical records.
Your records will detail the pre-existing injury, including its severity and extent. They should also show the increase in severity, or the decrease in mobility, that followed the crash, which is what establishes the cause-and-effect relationship between the two.
The strongest version of that evidence is a direct before-and-after comparison:
- Imaging: An MRI or X-ray taken before the crash, set beside one taken after, is the clearest proof that something changed. If earlier imaging exists anywhere, tell your lawyer where.
- Treatment history: How often you were seeing a doctor for that body part before the crash, compared with after.
- Function: What you could do before and can’t do now. Work duties, hobbies, and daily tasks all count.
- Testimony from people who knew you: Coworkers, family, and friends can describe the change in concrete terms a chart can’t.
In addition to your records, we may obtain testimony from medical professionals who have reviewed them and can explain how the accident affected your condition.
What to Expect from the Insurance Company’s Medical Exam
In a case like this, the insurer will often ask you to be examined by a doctor of its choosing. It may be called an independent medical examination, but the doctor is selected and paid by the insurance company, and their report frequently concludes that your current symptoms come from the old injury rather than the crash.
A few things are worth knowing before you go:
- Talk to your lawyer first. Whether you have to attend depends on your policy and the stage of your case.
- Be accurate rather than dramatic. Describe your symptoms on a normal day, including the days that are better.
- Do not hide the prior injury here either. The examining doctor already has your records.
- Write down how long the exam lasted and what the doctor actually did. A ten-minute exam behind a lengthy report is worth noting.
How Are Settlements Calculated for Aggravated Pre-Existing Conditions in Alabama?
Settlements in these cases are calculated by assessing the extent to which the accident worsened your condition. The insurance company will compare your pre-accident and post-accident condition and form a view about how much of the difference the crash actually caused.
That exercise has a name, apportionment, and it is where the real money in these claims is won or lost. The insurer wants to attribute as much as possible to the old injury and as little as possible to the crash. Your lawyer’s job is to draw that line accurately, which is why an independent review of your pre- and post-accident condition by a medical professional matters so much.
Challenges in These Claims
The two biggest challenges injured parties face are proving that their condition worsened and proving that the car accident caused the worsening.
The insurance company will try to show your condition didn’t worsen after the accident. It may hire a private investigator to collect footage of you going about your day. It can also use your social media posts against you, which is a good reason to stay off social media entirely while a claim is open.
It will also look for other explanations for the worsening. If you stopped treating for your pre-existing condition at some point, or if there was a long gap in your care, expect the insurer to argue that the gap is the real cause. Gaps in treatment after the crash get the same treatment, so keep your appointments.
Why You Need an Experienced Personal Injury Attorney in Alabama
When seeking a settlement for a pre-existing injury aggravation after an Alabama car accident, you need an experienced personal injury lawyer on your side to protect your rights.
These cases turn on medical detail, and the other side has people whose full-time job is finding a reason your pain predates the crash. The at-fault party and their insurance company will have lawyers looking out for their interests. Without one of your own, you start at a disadvantage.
Don’t Let a Pre-Existing Injury Limit Your Rights After a Crash
If you had a pre-existing injury aggravated in a car accident, don’t let the insurance company talk you out of a claim you’re entitled to bring. Contact Collins Law, LLC, for a free consultation with an experienced, caring, and determined Alabama car accident lawyer. We also serve north Alabama through our Madison car accident lawyers. There’s no charge to meet with us, and you only owe attorney fees if we recover money for you.
