After a car accident, it’s natural to want full compensation for the injuries caused by the other driver. But beneath that immediate desire, you’re also fully aware that there is a line between what you can and cannot include in a personal injury claim.
Pre-existing conditions straddle that line, with compensation available in some situations but not others. You must understand that including the wrong injuries in your claim could risk calling your entire case into question.
With that in mind, it may be best to seek legal assistance to help you determine which injuries to seek damages for. A lawyer from Laird Hammons Laird Personal Injury Lawyers can help you answer the question, “Can I be compensated for pre-existing conditions after a car accident in Oklahoma City, OK?”
Contact our law office at (405) 497-0480 for a free consultation to learn more.
How Laird Hammons Laird Personal Injury Lawyers Can Help You After a Car Accident in Oklahoma City, OK
The team at Laird Hammons Laird Personal Injury Lawyers has over 95 years of combined legal experience representing clients throughout Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, against those responsible for hurting them. Since our firm’s founding, we have recovered over $100 million in life-changing financial compensation for victims of traumatic incidents.
Our Oklahoma City car accident lawyers will provide you with the following services following an injury caused by someone else’s negligent or wrongful actions:
- Meeting with you to assess your claims and explain your options
- Investigating your case and gathering evidence to support our arguments
- Filing your insurance claim and negotiating for a settlement
- Litigating against the at-fault party if a settlement cannot be reached
Being in an auto accident can cause new injuries and aggravate pre-existing conditions. Contact our Oklahoma City personal injury lawyers for a free consultation to discuss your injuries and your rights to seek compensation for them.
How Many Auto Accidents Happen in Oklahoma City?
According to a query conducted via the Interactive Crash Maps provided by the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office (OHSO), the state saw 762 traffic deaths and 11,619 traffic injuries occur in 2021. Of these, 99 fatalities and 2,096 injuries occurred in Oklahoma City, representing 13% of the state’s crash-related deaths and 18% of its crash injuries.
Oklahoma City is home to just over 681,000 residents, about 17% of the state’s total population. With the above numbers in mind, the city actually experienced a smaller share of the state’s traffic-related fatalities than what would be expected based on its population alone. However, the opposite is true regarding its share of non-fatal traffic injuries.
Car Accident Compensation For Pre-Existing Conditions
Most car accident cases are based on negligence law.
That means, in order to win a case, your injury lawyer must prove the following four elements:
- Duty of care
- Breach of duty
- Damages
- Causation
Causation, in particular, is made up of two sets of circumstances. First, the injury must have been a foreseeable result of a breach of duty. Pre-existing conditions do not necessarily raise any issues here. A knee injury, for instance, would be a foreseeable result of another driver running a stop sign and hitting your driver’s side door.
The second aspect of causation is that the breach of duty must have been the cause-in-fact of your injury. In other words, one event (your injury) is the natural and logical result of another event (the breach of duty). It is here where pre-existing conditions can make things tricky.
If your injury happened before your accident, you cannot say that the accident “caused” it. For example, in the event that an old neck injury from playing tennis in high school flares up following a motorcycle accident, you could not say that the accident is what caused your neck injury altogether.
Aggravating a Pre-Existing Condition
When an accident exacerbates a pre-existing condition, you can pursue compensation for the worsening symptoms. Returning to the knee injury example, suppose that you have arthritis in your knee and that when a semi-truck hit your car in a truck accident, you tore your anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).
In such a case, the trucking company’s insurer cannot defend itself by arguing that your knee was already injured and thus off-limits for any injury compensation. The proper analysis is that you suffered a new injury to an already-injured body part.
Your ACL injury likely required new surgery, different physical therapy, and new medication. Equally importantly, the ACL injury caused new losses. You may have lost wages when you missed work for doctor’s appointments, and you might also have new limits on your work and home activities that affect your quality of life.
These changes all result in new economic and non-economic losses that you would not have otherwise incurred, even with your pre-existing knee pain. As such, these losses typically justify including the injury in an insurance claim or lawsuit.
Schedule a Free Consultation With Our Oklahoma City Car Crash Lawyer To Discuss Your Injuries
New and aggravated injuries from a car accident can produce intense pain that limits your daily activity. Contact Laird Hammons Laird Personal Injury Lawyers for a free consultation to discuss the injuries you’ve suffered or aggravated after an accident, and we’ll work to determine the compensation we can seek for them.
Visit our Personal Injury Law Office in Oklahoma City
Laird Hammons Laird Personal Injury Lawyers
1332 SW 89th St
Oklahoma City, OK 73159
Phone:
(405) 497-0480
Hours:
Monday through Friday
8am – 5pm
