A legal question ( Archived) (20)

I'd like to have an uniformed guess at the logic, if I may.

If you hit a two year old child at 10 miles per hour with your truck, that child may sustain head injuries and all sorts. If you hit a 6'6" adult male at 10 miles per hour he may sustain cuts and bruises. You can't argue that had the child had the decency to be a 6'6" adult male they would have only sustained cuts and bruises therefore you're only responsible for the cuts and bruises to the child.

In that case, you have to take the situation as it is, not what it might have been.

The law about the fragility of the person you injure probably came about through people arguing a lesser responsibility. It's there to protect the two year old who can't possibly be a 6'6" male and deserves adequate compensation to attend to their needs.

The problem with this idea is that it may leave the person who caused the accident more vulnerable. You might have a situation where people argue that an unconnected condition has been aggravated - you hit me at 10 miles per hour causing cuts and bruises and it made my ingrowing toenail far worse which needs medical attention which I couldn't afford before the accident.

What you need to find out is whether the injury you caused to the arm really did affect the pre-existing back condition, or not. If it did, take responsibility for it because you have to take the situation as it is, not what it might have been had this person had the decency to be more robust. If the injury you caused was isolated to the arm and the aggrieved party is just trying to tack the back condition onto your bill then refute the responsibility.

You need to review:
*the medical assessment after the injury;
*who did the medical assessment and their reputation/history;
*medical assessments of the back condition prior to the accident;
*the financial/medical insurance position of the injured party with respect to treatment of the original back condition;
*anything that they should, or shouldn't have done to protect themselves such as not driving, wearing a brace of some sort; &
*possibly other things I can't think of off the top of my head.

I'm really just guessing at this Ro, but I hope it might open a door a little to help you understand your situation and how to tackle it.

If a persons underlying medical condition is affected by an accident or injury caused by another without intent it will be taken into consideration. However, this must be proved and can take sometime depending on the nature of the injury caused and if it has long term consequences on their quality of life.

I wonder if there are any precedents pertaining to this in US or any other countries law. Would make interesting reading to understand their reasoning.

When I was still working we had a case of a young woman who was in a car accident with her father who was the driver of the car. She had a brittle bone disease known as Osteogenesis Imperfecta.

Brittle bone disease is a disorder that results in fragile bones that break easily. It’s typically present at birth, but it only develops in children who have a family history of the disease.

The disease is often referred to as osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), which means “imperfectly formed bone.”

Brittle bone disease can range from mild to severe. Most cases are mild, resulting in few bone fractures. However, the severe forms of the disease can cause:

hearing loss
heart failure
spinal cord problems
permanent deformities

Osteogenesis Imperfecta can sometimes be life-threatening if it occurs in babies either before or shortly after birth. Approximately one person in 20,000 will develop brittle bone disease. It occurs equally among males and females and among ethnic groups.

Brittle bone disease is caused by a defect, or flaw, in the gene that produces type 1 collagen, a protein used to create bone. The defective gene is usually inherited. In some cases, however, a genetic mutation, or change, can cause it.

This woman had a severe case and could not walk. If she tried to turn over in bed she suffered extreme pain. She could barely stand it when someone tried to wash her body because someone was touching her body.

Her condition was exacerbated by the accident. Even though she had a seat belt on her body was still thrown around in the car. We (the law firm where I worked) sued her father because he was driving the car. To look at her body before the accident you would think she isn't going to live long but she did still have the probability of living a long life because she was young.

Only now her condition has worsened since the accident.

To answer the hypothetical question that Ro asked, yes you can be accountable if you make someones illness/injury worse.

FYI: Judge Judy Sheindlin is a Civil Law attorney. She wouldn't have the expertise to handle the case that I presented in this post. Matter of fact, her show is no longer on tv except for old cases.

Sorry, I missed the bit about it being hypothetical because my cogs and wheels started whirring.

I hadn't thought about the weighting of the burden of proof, that is how much the injured party has to prove the injury and how much the person who caused the accident has to prove what aspects they were not responsible for.

I hadn't included the bartering process, either. The injured party will attempt to claim for as much as possible, the person who caused the accident will accept responsibility for as little as possible. Ideally a settlement somewhere inbetween will be negotiated which is satisfactory to both parties. It's in part a game.