I was injured when I tripped and fell on a pothole located in a broken asphalt parking lot. I injured my leg. But when I was in the hospital after the accident I also suffered from a stroke. I am still feeling the affects of the stroke. I feel like my accident precipitated my stroke. Can I recover for my pain and suffering?

Yes, you can recover for the leg injury, but you can recover for the stroke provided your doctor can explain the cause of your stroke.

Aggravation Versus Precipitation

An accident that makes an injury worse is an aggravation. You can recover for an aggravated injury, but you can only recover for what became worse in the accident. Ortiz v Mendolia, 116 AD2d 707 (2d Dept 1986). Thus, if you had a pre-existing leg injury, then it would be up to your doctor to explain what your prior injury was and what was made worse because of the accident. The law limits your damages to the additional injury sustained in the accident.

A precipitation is an underling condition which makes a person a person vulnerable to a certain injury. If that person suffers from an injury that was precipitated by a condition which makes you more vulnerable to a certain injury, then you can recover for those injuries. Owen v Rochester-Penfield Bus Co., 304 NY 457 (1952); Dunham v Canisteo, 303 NY 498 (1952). Put another way, a wrongdoer takes the plaintiff as he finds them.

In your case, you did not say what caused your stroke. Suppose you learned that your stroke was hemorrhagic. (A broken blood vessel in your brain can cause a hemorrhagic stroke.) Suppose further that the broken blood vessel occurred because you have a thin wall in your blood vessel (aneurism) that ruptured, then you may recover for the stroke injuries. The accident precipitated your existing aneurism and caused the stroke.

But if the doctor said you had an ischemic stroke (caused by a blockage like a blood clot in a blood vessel in your brain) and that stroke was going to happen eventually whether or not you had an accident, then you could not recover for those stroke injuries. The leg injury put you in the hospital, but it was coincidence you had a stroke at that time.

By James Santner, Esq.

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