Injury and Proximate Cause
February 8, 2017 9:08 amInjury and proximate cause
Let us postulate that I go through a stop sign. My vehicle comes into contact with your vehicle. You then experience injury as a torn meniscus. We now have duty, breach of duty, and injury. But is the accident the proximate cause of this injury? People experience torn meniscus all the time. Sometimes they have a torn meniscus and don’t even really appreciate the defect. Something causes them to become symptomatic. They go to the doctor. The doctor sends them for an MRI. The MRI reveals a torn meniscus. Under the circumstances of our case, this tends to indicate that the torn meniscus occurred as result of the automobile accident. Why? For two reasons: 1. Because of the temporal relationship between the diagnosis and the accident. 2. Because the biomechanics of an accident may result in knee injury. But the inquiry doesn’t end there. How long was it from the time of the accident to the time of the diagnosis? What is the medical audit trail of documentation establishing a causal connection between the incident and the diagnosis? What are the biomechanics of the accident? What is the history of this particular knee? Have there been previous radiographic studies? Have there been previous complaints?
In order to answer many of these questions, one needs to evaluate the history of the patient. Medical records must be gathered from all of the practitioners that have seen this patient of whatever type for a period of years. These records must then be examined to see if there are previous references to this knee and the result of those references. The most organized way to accomplish this task is to gather the medical records and to create a detailed chronology of those records. Two things must be made clear: that these are in fact all of the records and that they are accurate. Only then can an accurate detailed chronology be created. Once the chronology exists, we will know several things. We will know if there were previous complaints about this knee. We will know if there were previous treatments to this knee. We will know the status of the knee. We will know how that knee was up to and including the day of the incident. We will also have established the documentary trail from the date of the incident to the date of the diagnosis. Lastly, we will know the diagnosis and the recommended treatment. We may even know what treatment has been rendered. This information is essential to the preparation of your case.
If you have been injured in a car, motorcycle, bus, or boat accident call Hohauser Kuchon today at (248)619-0700
Tags: accident, breach in standard of care, car accident, faulty elevator, injury, knee injury, law firm, lawsuit, medical malpractice, medical records, negligence, personal injury, premises liability, proximate cause, run stop sign, slip and fall, torn meniscus