When you speak to a lawyer about your personal injury claim, one of the first things they will likely recommend is that you seek treatment, and follow those treatment recommendations. If you do not seek treatment, your lawyer may advise that it has negatively impacted your claim, or may lower the ultimate award you receive for your claim. Why is that?
Today's blog post provides three reasons why treatment is so important to your personal injury claim.
1. Recovery is the most important part of a claim
A claim brought for a motor vehicle accident, slip and fall, faulty product, or any other personal injury action all have the same goal: put you back into the position you would be in if the accident never happened. One of the most consistent ways to do that is to receive appropriate treatment for your injuries.
If you can get better with treatment, then you and the other party will both want to do everything they can to make sure you will get better. For the other party, this limits their financial risk for your long-term health. For you, recovery allows you to get back to the life you had before the accident.
2. Without treatment, your recovery is uncertain
If you do not get treatment, that doesn't mean that you weren't injured in the accident. However, it makes it very difficult to determine whether you would have recovered if you did have treatment. If you would have gotten better with treatment, but chose not to receive it for personal reasons, then the value of your claim may be reduced. In the legal world, this is called a "failure to mitigate."
If the opposing party can show that you knew you should have gone to a certain treatment, you did not go to that treatment, and that treatment would have helped you recover, then your claim will be limited to compensation for that hypothetical level of recovery, rather than your actual recovery. This is because the court considers your failure to get treatment to be one of, or a main, reason that you did not recover.
3. Proper treatment can strengthen your claim for damages
There is never a guarantee that treatment will lead to a perfect recovery. However, attending treatment will give some idea of how much you can recover, and what level of injury you will have for the rest of your life. With diligent and appropriate treatment, the long-term impact of your injuries becomes much clearer. You and the other party learn which treatments help, how often you need them, and what symptoms you still have despite treatment. This can help clarify exactly how much your claim is worth, and put you in a much stronger negotiating position, since you have the evidence about your condition's improvement – or lack thereof.
Treatment is one of the most important parts of a claim. It not only has the potential to help you feel better, but regular attendance at recommended treatment helps establish the long-term impact of your injuries on your life.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.