COULD A PRIOR INJURY AFFECT MY ACCIDENT CLAIM?

Could a prior injury affect my accident claim? I just got a question today from somebody that was in a pretty serious car accident. They injured their knee, and the question they had was that about four years before this accident, they had surgery on that same knee. They wanted to know whether the fact that they've been in a prior injury whether that could affect the value of their car accident claim, and the answer is maybe. Certainly, the insurance company and the lawyers that work for them are going to try to use that previous injury to minimize their exposure. Part of good lawyering in these cases is establishing that the injury was fully healed and that my client was very productive had fully recovered from the previous accident. We often do that with evidence of vigor for instance, people that can testify that our client was involved in rigorous activities, sporting events, difficult and challenging work, to show that whatever problems that person may have had four or five years ago have been fully resolved. With that kind of assistance and that kind of evidence, issues about pre-existing or damages before the claim can usually be minimized, so that the injured party can obtain full recovery for the injuries that were caused by the new motor vehicle accident you