You hurt your back years before the crash. Now the pain is different, the adjuster has requested a decade of medical records, and the first letter from the insurer describes your injuries as degenerative. That letter is a negotiating position, not the law. A pre-existing condition gives an insurer the easiest story it has for paying a legitimate New York injury claim less than it is worth. However, New York law does not zero out a claim because of a pre-existing condition or injury. It asks a narrower question: how much worse did this accident make you? Our Nassau and Queens personal injury attorneys answer that question for a living.
The Rule That Says a Defendant Takes You as You Are
New York settled this more than a century ago. In McCahill v. New York Transportation Co., the Court of Appeals held that “a negligent person is responsible for the direct effects of his acts, even if more serious, in cases of the sick and infirm as well as in those of healthy and robust people.” Lawyers call it the eggshell plaintiff rule. A driver who runs a red light does not get a discount because the person in the other car had a fused vertebra, a bad knee, or arthritis.
The Court went further in the same decision. Someone who negligently “forwarded a diseased condition” and hastened the harm cannot escape responsibility merely because the condition might have caused trouble later anyway. The chance that the condition would have worsened on its own would probably be, in the Court’s words, “an important element in fixing damages, but it is not a defense.”
There is a limit, and it is the part people misunderstand. The condition you already had is not itself the claim. In practice, a New York claim is valued by what the crash added. For example, new pain, accelerated degeneration, surgery you would not have needed, and function you lost.
Why the Adjuster Asks for 10 Years of Medical Records
An insurer that cannot dispute how the collision happened will dispute what caused your pain. The pattern is predictable, and none of it is personal:
- A broad records authorization that sweeps in every doctor you have seen, not only the ones treating the accident injuries.
- A review of your imaging by a radiologist retained by the defense, reporting that the findings are chronic and degenerative rather than traumatic.
- A brief defense medical examination that produces a report describing you as returned to baseline.
- Close attention to any stretch of weeks or months when you stopped treating, which the defense will offer as proof that you had already recovered.
Each of these has a documentary answer. The response is built from records rather than argument, and it starts with getting your prior charts in hand before the insurer characterizes them for you.
What New York’s Highest Court Requires You to Prove
In Pommells v. Perez, the Court of Appeals held that even where an injured person offers objective medical proof, a claim can be dismissed before trial when “additional contributory factors interrupt the chain of causation between the accident and claimed injury.” The Court named three of them: a gap in treatment, an intervening medical problem, or a pre-existing condition.
The companion cases decided that same day show both sides of the line. In one, the defense produced detailed evidence of degenerative disc disease that predated the crash, the injured man’s doctors never rebutted it, and one of them had already confirmed it, so the case was dismissed. In another, the only evidence of a prior condition was a defense radiologist’s unexplained note that the findings were “chronic and degenerative in origin,” which the Court called “itself insufficient,” and the claim was reinstated.
The practical lesson is narrow and important. A conclusory label does not defeat your claim, but a treating physician who leaves the point unanswered will, and so will one whose report quietly agrees with the defense. Once the defense puts real evidence of a prior condition in front of the court, your doctor has to meet it directly and say what this accident changed.
The Court applied the same reasoning to treatment gaps. A person who stops therapy while claiming a serious injury “must offer some reasonable explanation for having done so.” The Court was equally clear that “a plaintiff need not incur the additional expense of consultation, treatment or therapy, merely to establish the seriousness or causal relation of his injury.” A note from your doctor explaining that further treatment would only be palliative does that job.
The 2026 Changes That Raise the Stakes for a Prior Injury
If your injury came out of a car accident, New York’s no-fault law decides whether you can recover for pain and suffering at all. Recovery for non-economic loss is barred unless the injury clears the statutory threshold, and the definition the Legislature wrote now lists eight qualifying categories:
- Death
- Dismemberment
- Significant disfigurement
- A fracture
- The loss of a fetus
- Permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function, or system
- Permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member
- Significant limitation of use of a body function or system
Several changes took effect on May 26, 2026, and they apply to actions and proceedings commenced on or after that date. Three of them matter here.
The Legislature deleted the category that used to cover a medically determined injury preventing someone from performing substantially all usual activities for at least 90 of the 180 days after the crash. The law also now requires the trier of fact to decide fault before deciding whether an injury is serious. Additionally, the change in the law made comparative fault a bar in car accident cases governed by the no-fault law. Now, a claimant found more at fault than the people being sued recovers nothing. New York’s insurance regulator walked insurers through the package in July 2026.
The deleted category is the one that mattered most to people with prior injuries, because it offered a route that did not depend on proving permanence, and permanence is exactly what a degenerative history makes hard to prove. Without it, the medical evidence separating old damage from new has to be stronger, earlier, and far more specific.
Steps That Protect a Claim Built on an Aggravated Injury
None of this requires a spotless medical history. It requires an honest and organized one, and the work is much easier when it starts early:
- Tell your lawyer about every prior injury, surgery, and course of treatment, including the ones you assume are irrelevant. A surprise the defense finds costs far more than a disclosure you make first.
- Request your pre-accident records now, so the comparison is yours to make rather than theirs to frame.
- Keep treating, and if you have to stop, ask your doctor to put the reason in writing.
- Ask your treating physician to document the change directly: range of motion measured, function compared, and an opinion on what this accident did to a body that was already imperfect.
- Watch the deadline. Most New York personal injury lawsuits must be filed within three years of the accident under the general limitations rule, and some claims, including wrongful death and claims against a city, run on far shorter clocks.
Do those five things and the argument over your prior condition becomes far harder for an insurer to win. It stops being a story told about you and becomes a question your records address.
Talk With Our Garden City Team About Your Prior Injuries
A prior injury is not a reason to accept less. It is a reason to prepare more carefully. Our practice is laser-focused on personal injury claims, and we know how New York insurers build the pre-existing-condition defense because we take it apart regularly for clients across Nassau County, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan.
Contact our Garden City office today for a free consultation. We handle injury claims on a contingency basis, so there is never an attorney fee until we obtain compensation for you. Our team includes Spanish-speaking staff members ready to help.
