Elissa Adams was a passenger in a car traveling from Midland to Lubbock, Texas, when a passing motorist lost control and crashed into her. Adams was immediately taken to the hospital with “a concussion and other injuries.” Adams later sought treatment from a family and sports medicine physician for a concussion and related symptoms, including severe headaches. Adams also told the physician that she had experienced headaches prior to the car accident. Adams eventually initiated a civil claim against Allstate Insurance to receive full compensation for her injuries, including her recent severe headaches.
During the jury trial, Adams’s physician served as an expert witness about the cause and severity of her injuries. He noted that despite Adams’s prior history of headaches, he believed the car accident caused her current headaches. The physician also noted that a neurologist had performed surgery years prior to her car accident that had resolved her headaches. However, Allstate’s medical expert expressed skepticism regarding the cause of the headaches, citing the headaches she experienced before the accident and questions about the appropriateness of the specific tests conducted by Adams’s physician to best determine causation. Thus, Allstate’s expert was unconvinced that Adams needed future compensation for her headaches. Perhaps due to the conflicting expert testimony, the jury awarded Adams $87,787.37 for her past damages, but nothing for future damages.
Adams, contending the jury erred by failing to award damages for her future medical care, filed a motion for a new trial but was denied. On appeal, the Texas Court of Appeals upheld the denial, relying in part on this Texas case precedent:
“When there is conflicting evidence about the severity of the injuries or about whether the injuries were caused by the collision, the jury has the discretion to resolve the conflicts, determine which version of the evidence to accept, and refuse to award damages...The jury may determine that only part of the injuries [was] caused by the defendant’s conduct at issue and may award damages accordingly.”
This case illuminates a conflict frequently encountered by judicial decision-makers: how to determine causation and award damages in the presence of preexisting injury (PEI). That is, how do jurors generally perceive PEI in civil cases? Does its presence ever disrupt the (perceived) causal chain from the defendant’s conduct to the plaintiff’s alleged injuries, and how do jurors decide on a specific monetary award? Although the mere presence of a preexisting injury or condition does not generally preclude plaintiffs from recovering compensation for injuries sustained in an accident, little is known about how jurors resolve such conflicts. Factors that may affect jurors’ perceptions and decisions in civil cases involving PEI include (1) the characteristics of the PEI, such as whether it is physical or psychological, and whether it is acute or chronic; (2) how the PEI is presented at trial (e.g., via expert testimony—including how experts assess and render conclusions regarding causation); and (3) jurors’ general and specific perceptions of a PEI, such as whether they perceive it as the plaintiff’s fault.
Psychology researchers should look more closely at how jurors resolve such challenging decisions in PEI cases. In some cases, jurors may rightly discount liability or damages due to PEI, while in others they may be inappropriately affected by erroneous perceptions, such as believing that the PEI automatically precludes recovery. But what may be legally permissible does not always correspond with jurors’ decisions. Such a disconnect may be even more likely in this complex area of civil jurisprudence. Future research should investigate how jurors decide such cases and illuminate other social-cognitive issues surrounding how jurors evaluate this type of evidence.
