What Are Concurrent Causes? How Can This Affect My Personal Injury Case?

During your time pursuing a personal injury case with multiple causes, you may hear the phrase “concurrent causes.” Attorneys use this term when describing injuries or damages that occur from more than one cause. Many concurrent cause cases involve property insurance companies that do not cover both causes. Concurrent causes can affect personal injury cases when more than one element or person caused your injuries.

The legal doctrine of concurrent causation often comes into play after major disasters, such as hurricanes or tornadoes. In these cases, insurance policies may prevent payouts under one circumstance, but they have to pay for others. For example, there was concurrent causation after Hurricane Katrina, when insurance policies didn’t have to pay for flooding, but they were responsible for payouts for faulty city levees. In other cases, concurrent causation complicates personal injury claims, such as if you have a pre-existing condition your insurance policy doesn’t cover.

The doctrine of concurrent causation came from decisions courts in California made in the 1970s and 1980s. As a result of these decisions, many property insurers revised their policy to include anti-concurrent causation clauses to protect them from these types of cases. When insurance policies cover one cause of your injury but not another, it can be difficult to know if your policy will cover or exclude your losses.

Concurrent causation holds that when two causes contribute toward a loss, where insurance policies cover one and not the other, the insurance company must cover the loss. Insurance contracts with specific or named perils coverage are exceptions to this rule. Concurrent causation provisions apply only to insurance policies with “all risks” or “open perils.” These policies cover losses by any cause that is not directly stated on the excluded list. Typically, commercial policies exclude perils such as flooding and earth movement.

Have an attorney review your policy if you receive a denial letter from your insurance company regarding your personal injury claim when you thought your property suffered a covered loss. Denials regarding medical issues require a second or even third professional opinion. It may be in your best interest to have your insurance company review your property claim a second time. It’s possible your insurance representative overlooked something in your policy.

In a personal injury case, you may run into concurrent causes when dealing with two reasons for injury. For example, if you try to sue for medical malpractice but a pre-existing health condition also contributed to the extent of your injuries, the court might involve the rules of concurrent causation. Concurrent causation can hold the defendant responsible for the entirety of your injuries despite a pre-existing or concurrent condition. Whether more than one cause will limit a defendant’s liability depends on the circumstances of your accident.

In cases with more than one cause, a defendant might be liable based on the substantial factor test. In cases where the negligence of each factor could have caused the injury by itself, the defendant is liable for causing the entire harm. This is similar to how, in terms of an insurance policy, the insurer must cover your losses if the factor the policy covers is enough to have caused your entire injury.

There are many factors and tests an attorney can review for holding a defendant responsible despite multiple causes of injury. Due to many exceptions, loopholes, and changed insurance policies, it’s difficult to understand how more than one cause may affect your personal injury claim without speaking to an attorney. Cases with more than one cause are complex and require a knowledgeable attorney navigate them.

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