Ruling on prior injuries echoes case law

Torts

By Colin H. Dunn

Colin H. Dunn is a partner at Clifford Law Offices who concentrates in personal-injury and aviation law and handles complex and mass tort litigation. He can be reached at chd@cliffordlaw.com.

Posted August 13, 2015 3:05 PM

Illinois courts used to apply the creatively named “same part of the body rule,” which allowed a defendant to introduce evidence that the plaintiff had previously suffered injuries similar to those at issue without showing a causal relationship to the present injury as long as both injuries affected the same part of the body.But the Illinois Supreme Court abandoned that rule in Voykin v. Estate of DeBoer, 192 Ill.2d 49, 53 (2000).The plaintiff in Voykin claimed he injured his neck and back in a car crash. At …

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