Can Previous Accidents Affect An Accident Victim’s Personal Injury Claim?

True, a history of previous accident can affect the size of the award given to a victim with a personal injury claim. Because that is the case, it becomes the lawyer’s job to minimize the extent of that specific effect.

One aspect of the lawyer’s job concerns creation of a baseline.

The baseline relates to the victim’s health. Ideally, it will show that the victim was not displaying any evidence of prior injuries at the time of the most recent accident. The attorney does not try to cover-up for the fact that the victim was injured during a previous accident. The baseline needs to serve as evidence of the victim’s recovery from that earlier accident.

This is one time when pictures posted on social media networks could prove helpful. Those could show the victim engaged in various activities, during the days before the most recent accident. Naturally, the victim should not post any similar photographs while seeking compensation for the accident-related injuries.

Personal Injury Lawyer in Cambridge for victims with an injury claim must show that the responsible party caused a given client’s injuries. The team of lawyers working with the liable party might try to cloud the connection between that party’s actions and the client’s injuries. That team might choose to focus on the client’s history of past accidents. It becomes the attorney’s job to cancel out any perceived connection between the one party’s responsibility and the history of the past accidents.

The existence of those earlier claims cannot be denied. Still, their existence does not change the fact that someone should be held responsible for the client’s current injuries. The party that caused such injuries should be required to pay some form of compensation.

Lawyers help their clients to emphasize a central point: A defendant lacks the ability to choose his or her victim.

The legal team working with a defendant might suggest that the compensation should be lower, because the victim/client had been injured in earlier accidents. The legal system does not support such an argument. The victim’s past history did not cause the most recent accident. The defendant caused that particular accident.

A defendant does not get to choose his victim. Consequently, the losses suffered by that same victim must be covered by the responsible party. Of course, the defendant’s lawyers could try to make it look like the plaintiff helped to aggravate a given injury.

Good lawyers understand how to reach and work with expert witnesses, so that the defendant’s legal team cannot make any false claim. Good lawyers know how to check on the veracity of any statement made by the defendant’s legal team. Their efforts free their clients from concerns about a reduced compensation.