Many accident victims feel nervous about how their past health issues might affect a claim. The truth is that pre-existing conditions in personal injury claims are more common than most people realize. Having an old injury, illness, or chronic condition does not mean you lose your chance at fair compensation.
What matters is showing how the accident aggravated your condition and created new challenges. If you are dealing with pain on top of an old condition, you deserve to know that your history will not erase your rights.
In this article:
What Are Pre-Existing Conditions in Personal Injury Claims?
How Pre-Existing Conditions Affect a Personal Injury Settlement in Massachusetts
The Eggshell Plaintiff Rule in Massachusetts
Defense Strategies Using Prior Medical Conditions
Proving the Aggravation of Pre-Existing Injuries
Why You Need a Lawyer for Pre-Existing Injury Claims
Taking the Next Step After a Pre-Existing Injury Claim
What Are Pre-Existing Conditions in Personal Injury Claims?
A pre-existing condition is any injury or illness you had before the accident. It can include conditions like an old back injury, arthritis, or a prior fracture that never fully healed. These are called pre-existing medical conditions and can affect accident claims.
Having a condition alone does not bar recovery of damages. What matters is whether the new accident worsened your health or created additional problems you did not have before.
How Pre-Existing Conditions Affect a Personal Injury Settlement in Massachusetts
One of the biggest concerns in pre-existing injuries and compensation claims is how defense attorneys respond. They often argue that your pain comes only from the old injury, or that your symptoms are just part of the natural aging process. Insurance companies use these arguments to reduce what they offer to pay.
This is why it helps to understand how pre-existing conditions affect injury settlement outcomes. In Massachusetts, the law makes it clear: if an accident worsens your condition, you can recover for that additional harm. This principle is part of how courts treat the aggravation of pre-existing injury in personal injury cases. With the right medical evidence, judges recognize that even someone with a past health issue can have their life changed by a new injury, or by how the accident affected their past health issue.
Here are some common defense claims and how the law responds:
- Defense claim: Your pain is from an old condition.
- Reality: If the accident aggravated your symptoms, that new harm can still be compensated.
- Defense claim: The injury would have happened anyway.
- Reality: Under the eggshell plaintiff personal injury claim, the defendant must take you as you are, even if you were more vulnerable.
- Defense claim: Your medical history reduces the value of your claim.
- Reality: The law allows recovery for the new suffering caused by the accident, on top of what you already lived with.
- Defense claim: Prior records show no new damage.
- Reality: Updated medical reports and expert opinions can prove the clear difference before and after the accident.
For you, this means one thing: your history does not erase your future. If your condition was made worse, you still have the right to fair compensation. A skilled attorney can highlight these points, challenge unfair arguments, and ensure your settlement reflects the real impact of the accident.
The Eggshell Plaintiff Rule in Massachusetts
One of the strongest protections for accident victims is the eggshell plaintiff rule in personal injury law. This rule means the defendant must take the injured person as they are, not as a perfectly healthy individual. Even if you were more vulnerable because of a pre-existing condition, the at-fault party is still responsible for the full harm their actions caused.
For example, imagine someone slips and falls in a store. A healthy person may walk away with minor bruises. But if the victim already had arthritis, the fall might make that condition much worse. Under the eggshell plaintiff personal injury claim, the defendant is liable for the aggravated harm, not just the minor injury a healthier person may have suffered.
This rule reinforces the idea that you do not lose your rights simply because you had a medical history. The law recognizes your situation and protects you from being unfairly blamed for being more at risk.
An experienced attorney can highlight this rule in court, making sure the defense cannot downplay how much the accident truly worsened your condition.
Defense Strategies Using Prior Medical Conditions
Despite this rule, defense attorneys still use prior conditions to challenge claims. Their goal is often to reduce or deny settlement value. Here are some common defense strategies using prior medical conditions:
- Reviewing old medical files: Defense lawyers search through years of records to argue your pain is only from the past.
- Independent medical exams: Insurance companies may send you to their own doctors, who might claim your injuries are unrelated to the accident.
- Surveillance and social media: They may watch your daily activity or use online posts to suggest you are healthier than you claim.
These tactics can feel invasive and discouraging. But the important truth is that pre-existing conditions in personal injury claims do not erase your rights. With the right evidence and legal support, you can show how the accident changed your health and your life.
A skilled lawyer can push back against these tactics by challenging biased reports and presenting the full story of how the accident aggravated your condition.
Proving the Aggravation of Pre-Existing Injuries
Courts do not rely on assumptions. They want proof that the accident made your condition worse. The strongest way to show this is through evidence. The strongest evidence includes:
- Before-and-after medical records that track changes in your health.
- Expert medical testimony that explains the aggravation.
- Witness statements confirming how your life changed.
- Therapy notes, employment records, financial records, and even photos or videos.
This kind of detail matters because it separates what existed before from the new harm caused by the accident. An experienced attorney knows how to collect and present this evidence so that your story is clear and convincing. They also make sure insurers cannot twist the facts to lower the value of your settlement..
Why You Need a Lawyer for Pre-Existing Injury Claims
When you have a medical history, it is easy for insurance companies to argue that your pain comes only from the past. That can make the process feel discouraging, but this is where the right lawyer steps in to protect you.
A Massachusetts personal injury lawyer can:
- Separate old injuries from new harm by working with doctors to show how the accident made your condition worse.
- Challenge unfair arguments from defense attorneys who try to say your symptoms are just part of aging or natural progression.
- Collect strong medical evidence including records, expert opinions, and therapy notes that highlight the aggravation of your condition.
- Handle discovery and subpoenas so your private medical history is not misused.
- Protect your settlement value by making sure the focus stays on how the accident changed your health and your life.
With the right legal guidance, you are not left defending your past alone. Instead, you have someone who can make your case clear and strong, helping you pursue the compensation you deserve.
Taking the Next Step After a Pre-Existing Injury Claim
Having pre-existing conditions in personal injury claims often raises questions, but it does not take away your right to seek justice and compensation. What matters is proving how the accident heightened your limitations and how those changes affect your daily life. With the right guidance, your medical history becomes supporting evidence instead of a reason to reduce your settlement.
You deserve straightforward support, not complicated explanations or empty assurances. What truly helps is a team that listens, explains your options, and works to safeguard the full value of your claim.
The steps you take today will influence your recovery and your future. Our team at Raipher, PC works closely with clients who have prior health conditions, building strong cases that stand up to defense arguments.
If you want to better understand your options, a initial free consultation with our team can help clarify your next steps. Because we work on a contingency fee basis, you do not pay unless we win your case. Please call us today at (413) 746-4400 for a free consultation.