At Northwest Accident and Injury Clinic, we are specialized in rehabbing patients that have been harmed in car accidents. A frequent question that often gets asked is how a pre-existing injury may or may not change a person’s claim.
If someone has been recently treating for low back pain and then they appear to be rear-ended, that condition is recognized as an active condition.
The goal and responsibility of the insurance company are to restore the injured person to pre-injury a state and to cover all treatment that is ‘reasonable and necessary.’ Pain is normal and is part of living.
At one point, most of us will encounter a debilitating occurrence of low back pain. Often times, the insurance company will try to get around their responsibility by implying that a patient had pre-existing low back pain or neck pain.
Patients are in some cases frightened that they will be stuck owing bills that the insurance company may imply won’t be covered.
Idaho State has a very significant case law that is referred to as the ‘eggshell plaintiff law.’
An eggshell plaintiff is one who may have had some pre-existing injuries or ailments and might be thought of as more fragile, like an eggshell.
The law comes from a previous court case of Bennett v. Messick, 76 Wn.2d 474 (1969).
In this case, the plaintiff was contracted as a fruit picker. Another employee was operating a forklift and ran into the plaintiff. He sustained several injuries, including an ankle injury. He had also previously injured the ankle 40 years prior.
Court testimony showed that the plaintiff had notable degenerative changes in his ankle, but was not experiencing pain at the time of the injury.
The treating doctor testified that the second injury from the forklift caused pain and limited motion because it aggravated the dormant arthritic condition in the plaintiff’s ankle.
He moreover testified that, were it not for the following injury by the forklift, that the plaintiff would nevermore have had the medical problem he was then treating for.
"When a latent condition itself does not cause pain, suffering, or a disability, but that condition plus an injury brings on pain or disability by aggravating the preexisting condition and making it active, then the injury, and not the dormant condition, is the proximate cause of the pain and disability. Thus, the party at fault is held for the entire damages as a result of the accident."
If the answer is ‘yes’ then the goal is to restore the individual to the previous condition prior to the accident.
