Deerfield, IL Personal Injury Attorney

If you are involved in a car crash, suffer injuries, and seek compensation for your losses from the other driver, their car insurance company will do everything it can to deny your claim, defeat your case, or offer you as little as possible to settle the matter. This can sometimes include using your prior accidents against you.

If you file a car accident lawsuit against another driver, the insurance company lawyer defending them will know about your driving and medical history, including records about any injuries you claim you suffered in a prior accident. They will also know the details that came out in any lawsuit you filed arising from that earlier crash.

There are several different ways that the defendant’s insurance company will try to use any previous accidents, injuries, or lawsuits to defeat or diminish your claim. First, the insurer’s attorney may try to argue that the injuries you claim were caused by the accident are really “pre-existing injuries” that arose from your previous accident or another occurrence. Second, they will go through your medical records, take the depositions of your doctors, and hire a physician of their own who they hope will provide an opinion about the cause of your injuries. They will use this opinion to back up their position that your injuries weren’t their driver’s fault.

The insurer may try to use previous collisions as evidence that you are frequently negligent when you drive. Fortunately, the rules of evidence usually prevent the defendant from making such arguments, but that won’t necessarily stop the insurer or their attorney from trying to intimate that or “hint” at it to the judge or jury.

The insurer will also try to cast doubt on your current claim by looking at any other claims you may have made for compensation in the past. For example, if you filed a personal injury lawsuit after a prior crash or other incidents, or filed workers’ compensation or disability claims in the past, the defense attorney may attempt to paint you as a greedy opportunist who sees accidents as a way to “hit the jackpot.” They will try to make you look like someone who screams “whiplash!” after a stiff breeze blows.

Unfair as it may be, the insurance company lawyer will try to make you look bad, or untruthful, or negligent in front of a jury. And unless an aggressive personal injury lawyer stands in their way, they may be able to get away with it.