As you focus on your accident recovery, you might find yourself with some extra time on your hands where you can rest up. During that time, you might be tempted to turn to social media to connect with family members and friends, and to vent your frustrations about your accident, your injuries, and your recovery. While posting on social media can provide you with an outlet, it can also pose a significant threat to the viability of your personal injury lawsuit.
That might sound hard to believe, but it’s true. That’s why we want to spend a little time with this post talking about how social media can jeopardize your car accident personal injury claim. Hopefully then you’ll better understand the risks and the social media behavior that you need to avoid.
How social media puts your personal injury case at risk
Insurance companies and defense attorneys are adept at scouring social media for evidence they can use against car accident victims. As a result, they might use your posts for any of the following purposes:
- Minimizing the severity of your injuries: If your social media posts show you participating in outdoor activities, playing sports, or even wrestling with your children, it might give the defense and insurance companies an opportunity to argue that your injuries aren’t as bad as you claim them to be, even if those pictures are old or have been taken out of context. It can be hard to clarify this, which could put your compensatory recovery at risk.
- Attacking your credibility: If you post a lot on social media, it can be hard to keep track of what you’ve said. This leaves the door open for the insurance company or a defense attorney to look over your posts to see if you’ve ever made inconsistent statements. If you have, then they’ll use that fact against you to attack your credibility. This, in turn, could make it harder for you to convince a judge or jury of what you want them to believe.
- Allocating fault: If you aren’t careful on social media, you might end up saying something that can be construed as accepting at least partial blame for your accident. If you do that, then the defense is going to latch onto it to try to avoid litigation and put the fault onto you.
How can you protect yourself from your own social media?
It’s best to stay off social media until your personal injury case resolves. If you feel the need to post, though, keep the following in mind:
- You can adjust your privacy settings so that you minimize the risk of the defense reviewing your posts.
- Even your friends’ posts could involve you and be used against you.
- What you post matters.
Just remember, if you are going to take to social media, you need to be extremely careful.
Do you know how build an aggressive personal injury case?
Navigating the legalities associated with your accident can be stressful, and you might not know where to start when it comes to building your case. While that can be stressful to think about, take comfort in the fact that you can wrap yourself in the support that you need to get through this difficult time in your life.
By securing assistance and diligently working to build your case, you’ll hopefully be able to impose liability, find accountability, and recover the compensation you need to advance your recovery.
