Deterioration of a bodily injury
An adverse change in a victim's condition after consolidation and compensation, which gives a right to further compensation that the earlier settlement or judgment cannot bar.
Compensation for bodily injury rests on the victim's condition at the date of consolidation. If that condition later worsens, the victim may seek compensation for the new loss, even after a settlement or a final court decision, because the deterioration is a separate harm that did not exist when the first award was set. The victim must, however, show genuine deterioration linked to the original harmful event, not a mere misjudgment at the first assessment. The ten-year limitation period runs from consolidation of the deterioration, not from the accident. For the liability insurer, this rule keeps a bodily injury file potentially open for the victim's whole life, which weighs on reserves and explains reservation clauses in settlements, which cannot deprive the victim of this right.
A victim of a 2015 accident, compensated by settlement in 2017 for a knee injury at 8%, develops post-traumatic arthritis in 2024 that raises the rate to 18%; she obtains additional compensation from the insurer for the ten extra points.
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