Even if your car accident personal injury case seems straightforward and the evidence seems overwhelmingly in your favor, there can be legal complications that put your claim and your recovery at risk. That’s why it’s crucial that you carefully navigate your case. But if you’re like a lot of car accident victims, you don’t even know what it means to carefully navigate the process. After all, you’ve probably never had to work your way through a personal injury case before. So, what do you need to focus on doing and not doing?
There’s a lot, but in this post we want to look at one risk factor that could be problematic for your case: the use of social media. Let’s dive in to see what’s at risk when you decide to discuss your case and your recovery on your social media platforms.
Posting on social media can connect you with family and friends, and it can give you an outlet when you’re angry, frustrated, and disappointed. But it can also put you in a difficult legal position. Here’s how:
- Raising credibility issues: The defense in your personal injury case might scour your social media to see if you’ve made any prior inconsistent statements or posted any photographs that contradict your account of the severity of your injuries. If they do find these sorts of posts, then they can use them to attack your credibility and the reliability of your claims and your testimony.
- Demonstrating comparative fault: California recognizes comparative negligence, which means that your compensatory recovery can be reduced by the amount of fault attributed to you for the accident. If you post on social media about your driving mistakes leading up to the wreck, then you’re at an elevated risk of being found comparatively negligent. This, in turn, can significantly limit your ability to obtain care for your injuries and secure the financial stability you need.
- Highlighting exaggerations: If your social media persona is one that’s defined by emotional outbursts and exaggerated assessments, then the defense will likely use those posts to try to show that you’re prone to saying that things are worse than they really are. This can impact your ability to show the true extent of both your physical and your mental injuries, which in turn can reduce the amount of compensation that you recover from your claim.
These are just a few of the many ways that the defense might use your own social media posts against you. If you want to protect yourself and your claim as fully as possible, then it’s wise to avoid social media while your claim is pending and to tighten the privacy settings on your account. If there are already problematic posts on your accounts, then you should discuss them with your attorney to figure out how to best handle them.
Fight for the outcome you deserve in your personal injury case
There are a lot of nuances in a car accident personal injury case. While the tiny details of your case might be frustrating to a certain extent, you can’t glaze over them. To maximize your chances of recovering the compensation you want and need, you have to be as fully prepared as possible heading into your case, which includes adequately addressing these details.