Social media has become a great way to stay in touch with family, friends, and professional connections. It has also become a big part of litigation and maybe the very thing that causes you to lose or at the very least effects the value of your personal injury case or settlement. If you claim to be incapacitated, and images of you working, playing sports, even walking your dog, appear online, the validity of your case will immediately come into question.
ay, for example, you injure your arm, preventing you from doing the manual labor required by your job. During your case, you post images on Facebook of you drinking beers at a baseball game, having a good time with friends. While this may be physically possible given your injury, such recreational activities may support the defense team’s argument that you are not injured to the extent claimed or that you are “faking it”. Do not leave anything to perception.
Any information on these social media sites may be used against you by defense lawyers.
Some critical factors to keep in mind during your case:
1. Always be completely truthful in your claims.
2. Social media privacy settings may not have the effects you think they are.
3. Privacy settings on social media accounts may not keep relevant evidence from being discovered.
4. You should not accept any new friend requests during this time.
5. Insurance companies are not only using social media to market their products but to discover insurance fraud.
6. Any social media content you delete, never is completely removed from database servers, and may be subject to subpoena.
7. Be as transparent as possible when asked about content on your social media sites.
8. Simply do not post on social media and make sure others are not posting about you as well.
If you feel you may have a personal injury case to discuss or questions about how social media may impact your case, please contact the attorneys at Mitchell Hoffman and Wolf