Social Media Might Hurt Your Personal Injury Case

After an injury, it is only human nature to want to talk about what you experienced with others. Your friends online may be able to give you some advice or commiserate with you at the very least. However, it is crucial for you and other Missouri residents to understand how going onto social media to talk about your injury could be detrimental to a personal injury case.

While you have an active case and are waiting for your compensation, the other party’s insurer will naturally attempt to keep its expenses to a minimum. The company may attempt to discredit you and prove that you are not suffering as much as you claim, and social media could be the perfect platform with which to find clues about your condition.

Physical injuries

After a car accident, you might post pictures of your injuries and possibly a selfie from your hospital bed on Facebook. A couple of weeks after the accident, you could attend a party and post photos and a status update stating how much fun you are having. While these posts may seem innocuous, anyone looking for evidence that your injuries are not as bad as they appear could use them against you. The other person’s insurer might, for example, say that you would not attend a party if you were suffering so badly with broken bones and a concussion.

Emotional suffering

The same can be said for emotional trauma. Light-hearted, funny or positive social media posts might be used by others to try to show that you are not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or anything related to your accident, even if your positive posts are an attempt to distract yourself from traumatic memories. On the other hand, if you take to Facebook or Twitter to angrily rant about your experience, the insurer may claim you are bitter, unstable or trying to get money.

How might an accident victim prevent the other party from using their social media posts against them in a personal injury case? One possible option is to refrain from posting on social media until the case is over. At the very least, you may want adjust your privacy settings so only close friends and family can see your posts, and keep anything you put online brief and to the point.

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Frequently Asked Questions

With a contingent-fee agreement, your attorney does not charge a direct, hourly rate or require a set retainer fee. Instead, the attorney receives a percentage of the settlement or verdict as payment. This arrangement allows many injured persons to bring lawsuits that they would otherwise be unable to afford.

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It’s a good question. However, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question when to file a personal injury lawsuit. To put it one way, anytime you have suffered injuries due to someone else’s negligence and you are at risk of not receiving adequate compensation, it is likely you will need to sue in order to be properly compensated.