If you're experiencing respiratory problems, lung illness, or other health problems that could be linked to your use of JUUL or another vaping/e-cigarette product, you might be curious whether a preexisting condition (whether one you actually have, or one the other side claims you have) might affect any lawsuit you decide to file.
What happens when the harm you're claiming from a product like JUUL aggravates a condition you have (or might have), or is difficult to distinguish from that condition? What if there's a plausible but altogether different medical explanation for your lung illness or related health problems? It can certainly complicate things, but it won't necessarily prevent you from receiving fair compensation for harm resulting from your use of a product whose use comes with known health risks.
Whether you've actually received a diagnosis related to any of these conditions, or have any reason to believe that they might be relevant to your case, don't be surprised to hear Juul Labs Inc. (or another manufacturer of vaping products) argue that:
When you file any kind of personal injury lawsuit, it's a well-established rule that any compensation you receive ("damages" in legalese) will not cover health conditions that existed before you were harmed or otherwise injured by the defendant's wrongdoing. However, if the at-fault party's wrongful conduct made your preexisting condition worse, the at-fault party can be held financially liable for those effects. This rule may sound simple, but given the complexity of the human body and the difficulty inherent in proving causation in certain cases, the existence of a preexisting injury or condition can make it more difficult to determine the breadth of the defendant's liability and calculate the nature and extent of the plaintiff's injuries.
You can theoretically try to show that any preexisting/chronic respiratory problems were of a certain type or severity before you used JUUL or another vaping product, and now your health problems are more acute or intense. But there is a large degree of subjectivity here, and Juul Labs, Inc. (or any other defendant) will almost certainly argue that you're understating the impact of your preexisting condition, or that you're exaggerating the effects of any vaping-related illness that might be tied to your use of their product.
Even if you can prove that your use of a vaping product like JUUL made your preexisting health problems worse, it can be a challenge to establish the precise amount of damages you should receive. The biggest difficulty comes when trying to determine your more subjective and intangible damages, such as "pain and suffering." It's hard enough to calculate these losses when there is no preexisting condition. But when the earlier condition is aggravated by or is very similar to the harm resulting from the defendant's wrongdoing, the task becomes even more challenging. And whatever calculations you come up with, you can be confident the defendant will argue that your final figure is excessive. Learn more about how much a JUUL/e-cigarette lawsuit might be worth.
Despite the extra complications that can arise, a preexisting injury can sometimes make getting compensation easier, in the sense that a clear picture of your condition before the defendant's wrongdoing can make it easier to identify and measure the impact of the specific harm resulting from that wrongdoing.
For example, if you have indeed been diagnosed with pneumonia on two occasions in the past two years, there are going to be extensive medical records detailing your initial diagnoses and your ongoing course of medical treatment. And if nothing in those records indicates that you complained of or suffered from any of the symptoms you're currently attributing to vaping, it's now a little bit easier for you to counter the defendant's argument that your current issues can be linked to something other than your use of their product.
While a preexisting condition won't doom your case, it can complicate things considerably, which is one of many reasons why working with a lawyer can be the key to a positive outcome in your JUUL/e-cigarettes case.
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