Hobbsr: Can You Sue for Chronic Pain or Fibromyalgia?

If you suffer from chronic pain or fibromyalgia, you may want to seek legal remedies to compensate for your pain. Fortunately, you can sue for the injuries that caused or exacerbated your conditions. However, this may lead to a very heated legal battle, since permanent injures command high settlement or verdict amounts.

Keep in mind that you may have a hard time winning a legal battle if you already had a chronic pain condition prior to the injury. Claims that a single event caused a chronic condition or fibromyalgia will be closely scrutinized. If causation can be clearly proven with medical evidence, then you may be able to recover damages attributable to the condition.

When to Bring a Personal Injury Lawsuit

If you have been injured by the negligence or intentional actions of another person, then you may have a personal injury case. If your injuries result in chronic pain, then you should be able to recover damages that will compensate you for that pain.

Most personal injury cases come down to proving that the defendant acted with negligence. There are five elements to a negligence case: duty, breach of duty, cause in fact, proximate cause, and damages. A personal injury attorney can help you better understand if you may have a successful case for negligence.

Fortunately, personal injury lawyers are often only paid if a case is favorably settled or won in court. This is called a contingency fee. So you generally won’t have to pay for an an injury lawyer’s services unless your case is successful.

Suing With a Prior Condition

Under the law, a person who causes another person’s injury is liable for the economic damages they cause to the injured person. For example, if a person is injured in a car accident, the person that caused the accident will be responsible for the injured person’s medical bills, lost wages, and other economic damages, as well as for the injured person’s pain and suffering.

This is true even if the injured person was more susceptible to injury than the average person. When an injury victim is more susceptible to injury, they are commonly called eggshell plaintiffs.

If a person has a condition that makes them more susceptible to injury, then the person who causes the injury may face a higher award of economic damages. The elderly are commonly used as examples of eggshell plaintiffs because small accidents can cause big injuries.

Whether or not you have a prior condition of chronic pain, you may have a viable injury case if you have been injured by the actions of another. Contact an injury lawyer right away to find out if you have a case.

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