Can a Pre-Existing Injury Hurt My Personal Injury Case?
Yes, a pre-existing injury complicates your personal injury claim, but it does not prevent you from recovering financial compensation. 
In Pennsylvania, the person or company that caused the new accident is responsible for any worsening of your prior condition. This means the focus of your case shifts to clearly showing how the recent incident made your underlying condition worse.
Insurance companies might review your medical history closely to argue that your pain stems from the old injury, not the new accident. However, the law anticipates this very situation. A legal principle known as the “eggshell plaintiff rule” protects people whose unique medical history makes them more susceptible to injury. Our role is to gather the right medical evidence to draw a clear line from the accident to your increased pain and limitations.
If you have a question about how an old injury might affect your accident claim, we will provide clarity. Contact Leonard Hill – Personal Injury Lawyers And Car Accident Lawyers at (215) 567-7600 for a free, no-obligation discussion about your case.
Key Takeaways for Pre-Existing Injury Claims
- A prior injury does not prevent you from recovering compensation. Under Pennsylvania’s “eggshell plaintiff rule,” the at-fault party is responsible for the full extent of the harm they cause, even if your condition made you more susceptible to injury.
- Your claim is for the worsening of your condition. The focus is on proving “aggravation,” which is a permanent worsening of your health, not a temporary flare-up of old symptoms.
- Full honesty about your medical history is required. Disclosing your entire medical background to your attorney is essential, as hiding a prior condition destroys credibility and undermines your case.
You Were Already Hurting, and Now It’s Worse. Does the Law Protect You?
You may have had a bad back from years of construction work, a degenerative disc disease diagnosis, or a shoulder that never fully healed from a sports injury. Now, a car crash or a fall has made that manageable pain unbearable.
Your primary worry is that the other party’s insurance company will see your medical history and use it against you. They are a business, and part of their process involves looking for reasons to minimize what they pay. They will request your medical records and may argue that your current condition would have happened anyway, regardless of the accident. It is common for them to try to attribute all your pain, medical bills, and lost income to your old, pre-existing condition. This feels deeply unfair, as if you’re being punished for a health issue you already had.
As mentioned earlier, Pennsylvania law has a long-standing principle that provides a direct answer to this problem: the “eggshell plaintiff rule.” This rule, sometimes called the “eggshell skull rule,” is a legal doctrine holding that a defendant is responsible for all the harm caused by their actions, even if the victim’s injuries are more severe than expected due to a pre-existing vulnerability.
This rule says that a defendant must take the victim as they find them. Simply put, if a person has a condition that makes them more fragile than the average person (like an “eggshell skull”) the at-fault party is still responsible for the full extent of the harm they cause.
Think of it with this analogy: Imagine two identical porcelain vases. One is perfect, and the other has a small, hairline crack that isn’t visible. If someone negligently knocks both vases off a shelf and they both shatter, that person is responsible for breaking both vases. They are not permitted to argue they are only responsible for a little damage to the second vase because it already had a hidden flaw.
What Is the Difference Between a “New Injury” and an “Aggravated” One?
Defining an Aggravation
An “aggravation” is when the accident makes a pre-existing condition more severe, more painful, or accelerates its progression. It is different from an “exacerbation,” which is a temporary flare-up of symptoms that eventually return to their previous state. An aggravation implies a permanent worsening of your baseline condition.
- Example 1 (Degenerative Condition): You have mild, manageable arthritis in your neck. A rear-end collision causes a whiplash injury that transforms your mild, occasional stiffness into constant, severe pain requiring injections and physical therapy. The defendant is responsible for this worsening, not for the underlying arthritis that you already had.
- Example 2 (Old Physical Injury): You had surgery on your knee five years ago and were fully recovered, able to hike and play sports. In a slip and fall accident, you re-injure the same knee, tearing the repaired ligament. While the knee had a history, the new tear and resulting limitations are the direct result of the fall.
Why the Distinction Matters for Your Compensation
Your claim is for the difference in your quality of life and health before and after the accident. We work to show how your life has been negatively altered by this new event and pursue compensation for damages that reflect that change.
This includes:
- Increased Medical Bills: The cost of treatments you needed after the accident that you didn’t need before, such as more frequent doctor visits, new medications, or surgical procedures.
- Worsened Pain and Suffering: Compensation for the new level of physical and emotional distress you now endure.
- New Physical Limitations: If you could work 40 hours a week before but are only able to manage 20 now, that loss of income is part of the claim. If you no longer perform household chores or enjoy hobbies, that loss of enjoyment of life is also considered.
The Concept of “Medical Causation”
To succeed, we must prove with medical evidence that the accident was a factual cause of your worsened condition. This is called establishing medical causation. We need a medical professional to explain, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, why and how the trauma from the accident triggered this change. The negligent act must be a “substantial factor” in producing the new level of injury.
How Do We Prove the Accident Made Your Old Injury Worse?
The Most Damaging Mistake: Hiding Your Medical History
Always be completely transparent about your pre-existing conditions with your attorney from day one. Do not hide anything. 
During the legal discovery process, the defense will obtain your relevant medical records. If you have been dishonest about your medical past, your credibility will be destroyed, and it could ruin your entire case. Being upfront allows us to anticipate the defense’s arguments and build a strategy around the facts from the beginning.
The Four Pillars of Proof
To build a compelling case, we rely on several key sources of evidence to demonstrate how the accident aggravated your prior condition.
- Your Medical Records—Past and Present:
- Creating a “Baseline”: We will gather your medical records from before the accident to establish a “baseline” of your health. This might show that you had a back problem but hadn’t seen a doctor for it in two years and were not on medication. This helps define your physical state before the incident.
- Showing the Change: Your post-accident medical records, including MRIs, X-rays, doctor’s notes, and physical therapy reports, will then be compared to that baseline. This comparison provides objective evidence of a clear negative change, such as a new herniation on an MRI or a documented decrease in your range of motion.
- Your Doctor’s Opinion:
- The testimony of your treating physician is powerful. Your doctor writes a detailed report or testifies about how your symptoms and physical limitations have changed since the accident.
- They offer a professional medical opinion that, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, the trauma from the accident caused the aggravation. This expert connection between the event and the outcome is fundamental.
- Testimony from You, Your Friends, and Family:
- You are the best witness to your own experience. How has your life changed? You need to be prepared to articulate the differences. Could you lift your grandchildren before, but now you cannot? Did you enjoy gardening, but now the pain makes it impossible?
- Statements from friends, family, or coworkers are also effective. They testify about the person they knew before the accident versus the person they see now, providing a third-party perspective on your new limitations.
- Expert Medical Witnesses:
- In some complicated cases, it is helpful to retain an independent medical expert. This is a doctor who specializes in a relevant field and reviews all the evidence—your records, imaging scans, and other testimony—to provide an unbiased opinion. An independent expert authoritatively connects the accident to the worsened injury, which is persuasive to an insurance company or a jury.
FAQs: Your Questions About Pre-Existing Injury Claims Answered
What if I was fully recovered from my old injury before this new accident?
This significantly strengthens your case. If you show that your prior injury was asymptomatic (causing no symptoms) or that you were no longer receiving active treatment for it, it creates a much clearer dividing line. When you have been living a normal, pain-free life for months or even years, the defense has a much harder time arguing an old condition is to blame for your current pain.
Can my own family doctor help my case in Philadelphia?
Yes, absolutely. The opinion of a doctor who has treated you for years and knows your medical history is typically more compelling than that of a one-time independent medical examiner hired by an insurance company. Juries in Philadelphia tend to find long-term treating physicians highly credible because they have a history with you and speak to the changes they have personally observed.
How long do I have to file an injury claim in Pennsylvania?
For most personal injury cases in Pennsylvania, the law gives you two years from the date of the injury to file a lawsuit. This deadline, known as the statute of limitations and codified in 42 Pa. C.S. § 5524, applies whether the injury is new or an aggravation of a pre-existing one. We advise acting well before this deadline expires, as missing it will almost certainly bar you from recovering compensation.
Will the insurance company get to see my entire medical history?
Not necessarily. While they are entitled to records relevant to the injuries you are claiming, we will fight to protect unrelated and private medical information. Under rules governed by laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a defendant’s request for records is not an unlimited “fishing expedition” into your entire life’s medical history. We will work to ensure that any disclosures are limited to what is legally required and relevant to your claim.
What happens if I was partially at fault for the accident?
Pennsylvania follows a “modified comparative negligence” rule. This means you may still recover compensation as long as you are found to be 50% or less at fault. Your final compensation award would then be reduced by your percentage of fault. This rule, found in 42 Pa. C.S.A. § 7102, applies whether you have a pre-existing condition or not.
Don’t Let a Past Injury Determine Your Future
The fear that your medical history will prevent you from getting help is exactly what might stop you from taking action. Do not let that happen.
The law is designed to protect you, not to penalize you for your physical history. With the right evidence and a clear legal strategy, you may hold the at-fault party accountable for worsening your condition.
The key is to present the facts clearly and correctly from the very beginning. We handle cases involving pre-existing injuries and understand how to demonstrate the true impact the recent accident has had on your life. Let us review the details of your situation and explain how we will help.
Call Leonard Hill – Personal Injury Lawyers And Car Accident Lawyers today for a free consultation at (215) 567-7600.