A Veteran’s Old Injury Is Not an Excuse

I grew up in the San Bernardino Mountains, left for the Marine Corps after college and spent 23 years in uniform, serving in the infantry, as a military lawyer, and as a civil affairs officer before coming home to the Inland Empire to practice injury law.

Many of the veterans in this region carry something home from their service: a damaged back, deteriorating knees, a shoulder that never fully recovered, hearing loss. Most adapt and keep working, and few think of those injuries as a liability.

But insurers often do. When a veteran with a documented service injury is later hurt in a crash, the most convenient defense available is that the pain was already there. The veteran’s own medical history becomes the evidence used to shrink what they are owed. The same argument is made against civilians, but it lands particularly hard with veterans, whose injuries tend to be recorded in far more detail than most people’s.

It is also an argument California law rejects. A person whose negligence aggravates an existing condition is liable for that aggravation. The state’s standard jury instructions direct jurors to compensate an injured person for the worsening of a preexisting condition, though not for the condition as it existed before. They further instruct that a person who was unusually vulnerable, because of an old injury or anything else, may recover for the full harm the incident actually caused.

The Law Takes People as It Finds Them

The principle is old and simple: the law takes people as it finds them. A driver who rear-ends a car on the 210 does not get to choose a healthier victim. A veteran with a damaged spine is not worth less because the damage began in uniform rather than on the freeway.

That is not special treatment for veterans. It is ordinary personal responsibility, applied evenly. Whoever causes harm pays for the harm caused, with no discount because the injured person had already given something up in service to the country.

Why the Argument Still Works

What troubles me is how often the opposite argument is made anyway, and how often it works on people who do not know the law is on their side. Veterans are trained to minimize pain and keep moving. That incredible discipline serves them well in uniform. But it can work against them when they need it most.

A VA disability rating is often treated the same way, as though it settles the question. It does not. A rating documents a veteran’s condition before a catastrophic crash or accident. The legal question is what changed, and the records behind a rating are frequently the clearest evidence of exactly that.

Respect Has a Practical Side

We spend Veterans Day talking about respect, but respect has a practical side. It means refusing to let a veteran’s prior service become a discount on what they are owed when someone else hurts them. The law already says as much. The rest of us should insist on it.

Gratitude is easy to offer once a year. Fairness has to hold up every day, including in a claims file.

Cory Weck is a personal injury attorney and partner at McCune Law Group, serving the Coachella Valley and the Inland Empire from the Rancho Mirage office. He is a retired Marine Corps officer who served 23 years in the infantry, as a military lawyer, and in civil affairs.

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