Most people carry their medical history and insurance files like a backpack they never meant to pick up. When a car crash happens, that backpack suddenly matters. Prior injuries, old workers’ comp filings, earlier car wreck claims, a slip-and-fall from years ago, even a short course of physical therapy after a gym mishap, all of it can shape how your new claim is valued and challenged. Insurers look for any reason to discount what you are going through. That does not mean you are barred from recovery. It means strategy and clarity matter from the start.
I have sat across from clients who felt almost apologetic about their history. “I had a neck strain five years ago.” “There was a small claim after a rear-end crash in college.” “I filed short-term disability when I tore my rotator cuff.” None of those facts, standing alone, doomed their case. What changed the outcome was how we handled those facts: carefully, openly, and with the right documentation.
Why insurers care so much about your past
Insurers evaluate risk in patterns. If you claimed for back pain three years ago and you claim for back pain now, they argue this is not a new injury, just a flare-up. If you settled a whiplash case before, they suggest you are prone to claim. Another favorite tactic is blaming everything on “degenerative changes,” a term that shows up on many MRIs in adults over 30 even if they never felt a twinge before. The adjuster’s goal is not to diagnose you. Their job is to minimize payout by sowing doubt on causation and the extent of damages.
From the defense perspective, prior claims create leverage. They can request older medical records, depose prior treating providers, and hire experts to say your post-crash symptoms mirror earlier complaints. If they succeed in reframing your injury as preexisting, they can cap your damages or defeat them altogether.
The thin skull rule and its practical limits
Courts recognize a basic principle that matters a lot here: the at-fault driver takes the injured person as they find them. Often called the thin skull or eggshell plaintiff rule, it means the defendant is responsible for aggravating a preexisting condition, even if a healthier person would have suffered less. In practice, however, you still have to prove two things with credible evidence: that you had a condition before the crash, and that the crash made it worse in a measurable, medically supported way.
That second part is where cases rise or fall. It is not enough to say, “My back hurts more now.” The record has to show how, preferably through contemporaneous medical notes, diagnostic studies, and consistent symptom reporting. When the documentation is tight, this rule packs a punch. When the record is thin or inconsistent, insurers exploit the gaps.
What counts as a prior claim or relevant history
A “prior claim” covers more ground than most people expect. Insurers and defense lawyers may point to any of the following as relevant:
- Previous car crash claims, even minor ones, especially involving the same body part. Workers’ compensation or short-term disability claims for musculoskeletal injuries.
That is one list. We have one remaining allowed list.
Beyond formal claims, they look for ER visits, urgent care notes, sports injuries, chiropractic care, and physical therapy. If you complained of knee pain six months before a crash, expect questions if your knee is now part of your new claim. They will also call out degenerative conditions like arthritis or disc bulges that show up on imaging, even if you never had symptoms before the collision.
How prior claims affect the value of a new case
In negotiation, adjusters rarely say they slashed value due to your history, but you can see the fingerprints. Offers come in lower. They push for broad record releases to go digging. They propose “apportionment,” arguing that only a percentage of your current pain is related to the crash. The more overlap between prior issues and current complaints, the greater the downward pressure.
Cases can still settle well, but the path is different. You need to separate the “before” and “after” clearly and quantify the delta. That is where good medicine and good law meet.
Building a timeline that actually works
I encourage clients to sketch a straightforward chronology, no legalese, just dates and what hurt. Start with the oldest relevant issue and move forward. Add treatment milestones: X-ray, MRI, injections, surgery, therapy, work restrictions. Put the crash at the center. Then mark what changed after the crash: pain intensity, new symptoms, functional limitations, missed work, new referrals, new imaging. When a doctor, adjuster, or defense lawyer sees a clean timeline, it tempers assumptions about exaggeration. It also helps your car accident attorney quickly pinpoint which records matter most.
A simple example: you had lower back tightness five years ago, treated with six sessions of PT, and were symptom-free for years. After the crash, you developed radiating pain down the left leg, numbness in two toes, and documented weakness on exam. That is a different clinical picture. The timeline brings out the difference in a way that resonates.
The medical piece: objective findings and honest narratives
Jurors and adjusters both trust specific, objective markers. Your personal injury lawyer will look for these anchors:
- Diagnostic changes: new herniations or increased protrusion size on MRI, new fracture lines, edema on STIR images, or fresh ligament injuries. Functional testing: loss of range of motion documented by goniometer, positive straight leg raise, new neurological deficits, or a lower grip-strength score compared to baseline.
That is our second and final list.
Still, not every real injury lights up on imaging. Soft tissue injuries can disable a person for months while MRIs look unchanged. In those cases, consistent treatment notes and credible symptom diaries workers compensation lawyer matter more. A provider who charts pain behavior, sleep disruption, response to therapy, and work limitations paints a picture that an insurer cannot dismiss as easily.
Equally important is honesty about your history. If you forget to mention an old injury and the adjuster finds it, your credibility takes a hit. I would rather disclose it up front, explain the resolution, and show how the crash produced something new or worse. Jurors forgive human bodies for breaking down. They do not forgive omissions that feel strategic.
Aggravation versus new injury: how to frame your case
Some cases should be presented as aggravated preexisting conditions. Others need to be framed as new injuries. If a radiologist compares images and sees an old disc bulge now protruding more with nerve impingement, “aggravation” rings true. If you never had shoulder instability before and now have a labral tear confirmed on MR arthrogram, “new injury” fits better. Sometimes you have both: a long-standing neck issue, plus a fresh concussion with cognitive deficits. The framing can change how the trier of fact perceives causation and damages.
Your car accident lawyer will often ask treating physicians for a short letter: a medical causation opinion using the “to a reasonable degree of medical probability” standard. The best notes are plain: describe the pre-crash baseline, the event, the post-crash findings, and the medical basis for linking the two.
What defense experts will say, and how to meet them
Defense medical examiners tend to repeat certain themes. Degeneration equals preexisting. Inconsistent complaints equal exaggeration. Gaps in treatment equal recovery. Normal imaging equals no injury. Plan for each one.
Degeneration does not disprove causation. Most adults have degenerative changes; relatively few have disabling pain. When post-crash symptoms depart from the pre-crash baseline, that matters more than the word “degenerative.”
Inconsistency sometimes reflects the messy reality of healing, not dishonesty. People have good days and bad days. If your chart reflects that pattern, it should also reflect functional impacts: a missed shift, inability to lift a toddler, cancelled social plans.
Gaps in treatment can be explained. Maybe you lost insurance, cared for a parent, or did home exercises as instructed. Document the reason. A brief note in a follow-up visit can neutralize what might otherwise look like abandonment of care.
Normal imaging does not rule out injury. Plenty of concussion patients have clean CT scans, and soft tissue injuries can be purely clinical for weeks. A defense expert may concede that point if asked the right questions.
Settlement dynamics when you have prior claims
Expect the insurer to test you with a conservative first offer. They know that prior claims can make plaintiffs nervous. Rushing to settle is rarely wise unless you have reached maximum medical improvement or have a clear, stable picture of future care. Once you release claims, you cannot reopen them.
A good car accident attorney will quantify past medical bills, project future needs with a physician’s input, and capture wage loss with employer letters and tax records. If you had a similar prior claim, it helps to compare pain scores, treatment intensity, and duration. Twelve physical therapy sessions five years ago versus a year of combined PT and pain management now are not the same.
Also expect broader medical authorizations in discovery. You do not owe unfettered access to your entire life’s records, but the defense can pursue prior records that are reasonably related. Judges often grant that leeway. The strategy is to set boundaries while being ready to produce the records that matter, with context.
Deposition realities: preparing for the hard questions
The deposition is where prior claims often take center stage. The defense will ask for dates, providers, diagnoses, medications, and restrictions. The goal is to catch you minimizing history or contradicting records.
Preparation looks like this in practice: we review your timeline, stack the most relevant prior records chronologically, and flag any differences between what you remember and what the chart says. Memory fades. Notes endure. If the chart says you rated back pain a 3 out of 10 for two weeks in 2019, say so. Then say what changed after the crash: 7 out of 10, radiating symptoms, waking at night, missed work. Short answers. No defensiveness. No speculation.
Juries and common sense
When these cases reach trial, juries make grounded decisions. They have friends with creaky knees and stiff backs. They have lived through injuries that flared under stress. They tend to accept that vulnerability does not negate harm. What they watch closely is whether you are straightforward about your past and consistent in your present.
Telling the story plainly helps. Before the crash, you ran 3 miles twice a week. After, you cannot finish one without stabbing pain. Before, you stood during a shift with minor stiffness. After, you need breaks every hour and you sit to lace your shoes. Numbers help: how many PT sessions, how many days missed, how many injections, how much sleep lost. They connect dots better than adjectives.
Special issues: prior concussions, PTSD, and chronic pain
Head injuries and psychological trauma complicate causation analysis. With concussions, many people feel fine a week after a blow, then headaches, light sensitivity, or brain fog linger for months after a new event. Prior concussions raise the stakes, because repeated injuries can compound. If you had an earlier concussion and now suffer post-concussive symptoms after the crash, neurologists can often separate baselines using neurocognitive testing or careful clinical history.
PTSD and anxiety disorders often have triggers or periods of remission. A violent collision can reignite symptoms. Mental health records can be sensitive. Talk with your personal injury lawyer about balancing privacy with proof. Sometimes a treating therapist’s letter that avoids intimate details but verifies diagnosis, timelines, and functional impacts is enough.
Chronic pain disorders like fibromyalgia introduce another layer. Defense counsel may argue central sensitization means your pain exceeds what the crash could cause. Your team should educate the factfinder on how trauma can worsen central pain processing, and use functional outcomes to anchor claims.
The role of social media and surveillance
Prior claims prompt insurers to invest in surveillance and deep social media pulls. If you posted about an old knee injury and now claim new knee pain, they will try to stitch those posts together. Living your life is not a contradiction, but careless posts can distort your story. Privacy settings help a little, not a lot. Assume anything public will surface, and that even private content could be subpoenaed if a judge allows it.
Surveillance video usually captures neutral activities: carrying groceries, walking a dog, bending into a trunk. Defense lawyers play it like a highlight reel. The counter is context. A five-minute clip cannot show the pain spike that sent you to the couch afterward, or the ice pack you used that night. Mention those consequences to your provider so the medical chart corroborates your lived experience.
Practical steps that strengthen your case
Clarity beats complexity. These habits make a real difference:
Keep a simple symptom and function log. A few lines per day about pain levels, activities tolerated, work capacity, sleep, and meds tried. Patterns emerge that support causation.
Follow medical advice, or explain why you cannot. If transportation or cost prevents treatment, tell your provider and your lawyer. There may be options, from provider liens to telehealth check-ins.
Gather records early. Obtain your prior claim documents and old imaging CDs before the defense asks. Comparing past and present radiology side by side can be powerful.
Be candid in intakes. When a new doctor asks about prior injuries, list them. It is better for the chart to reflect the truth than for the defense to use an omission against you later.
Coordinate messaging. Your car accident attorney, primary care doctor, and specialists should agree on the causal narrative when it is medically appropriate. Inconsistencies, even innocent ones, are easy targets.
When trial might be worth it
If liability is clear and the only dispute is how much the crash aggravated your condition, a jury can be a good audience, especially when your pre-crash baseline was stable. On the other hand, if you had frequent, documented treatment for the same body part right up to the crash, settlement may be the pragmatic route unless you have strong objective changes. That is not defeatist. It is the kind of judgment that prevents a year of litigation from producing a net recovery smaller than a realistic pretrial offer.
The calculus also depends on venue, judge, and the quality of experts on both sides. Some jurisdictions are skeptical of pain claims without imaging changes. Others trust treating physicians over hired experts. A seasoned personal injury lawyer will read that terrain and advise accordingly.
How a focused legal team adds value
This is the kind of case where experience pays for itself. A skilled car accident attorney knows which records to emphasize, how to secure persuasive opinions from treating doctors, when to bring in a biomechanical or medical expert, and how to preempt the insurance narrative. They also understand pacing. Settling too soon leaves medical developments off the table. Waiting too long can burn goodwill with an adjuster or the court. Timing the demand after a key diagnostic or at maximum medical improvement often changes the entire negotiation.
Just as important, a steady hand can lower the temperature. You do not need to argue every point in correspondence. You need to win the points that move value, and keep the rest from clogging the process.
Edge cases worth noting
Low-impact collisions with prior claims. Defense counsel will lean into crash photos and minimal property damage. Emphasize biomechanics only if it helps, and lean harder on clinical course and functional limitations. A bumper can spring back. A neck cannot.
Non-disclosure of a prior claim discovered mid-case. Do not double down. Disclose promptly, explain the oversight, and reframe with supporting records. Credibility can be repaired with transparency.
Symptom-free degenerative disease that lights up after a crash. This is common and defendable. Treating physicians can explain why asymptomatic arthritis or disc disease can become symptomatic after trauma, and why pain flare-ups are not “just aging.”
Return-to-work with restrictions. Insurers treat a full return as recovery. If you are working with accommodations or in pain, make sure the employer letter and medical notes spell that out.
The bottom line on prior claims
Your past does not disqualify your present. It reframes the proof you need. Document who you were before the crash, show how the crash changed your body and your life, and be frank about every prior injury and claim. Insurers will push. Defense experts will generalize. The antidote is precise facts, consistent care, and a narrative that matches the medical record.
When you partner early with an experienced car accident lawyer, you gain a buffer and a plan. They will gather the right records, draw a clean line from then to now, and keep the conversation anchored in evidence rather than suspicion. That is how prior claims stop being a liability and become part of a credible, compelling case for fair compensation.