In today’s digital age, the pervasive use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others means that your online presence can significantly impact your personal injury case. Whether you are filing a personal injury claim due to a car accident, slip and fall, or any other incident, what you post online can be used as social media evidence by defense attorneys to challenge your claim.
Understanding Personal Injury Cases
Personal injury cases come up when a physical injury, such as emotional or bodily injuries, is sustained. These cases usually require the plaintiff to be compensated in various ways, depending on the nature of the injury. However, typically, compensation covers medical bills for pain caused/diminished quality of life.
Common Causes of Personal Injury Cases
The most frequent causes of personal injury cases include:
- Road (motor) vehicle accidents
- Workplace accidents
- Medical injuries from medical and occupational diseases
Social Media’s Influence on Personal Injury Claims
Social media presence can significantly impact compensation claims in personal injury cases. Posting details about your injuries or the accident on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook can be detrimental.
Potential Risks of Social Media in Personal Injury Claims
The constant need to share even the minute details of their day-to-day activities on social media has led to certain unpleasant situations. One of those unpleasant occurrences will be if you have a pending insurance claim:
Seemingly Innocent Posts Can Be Misinterpreted: Even seemingly innocent posts about your daily life, physical activities, or emotional distress can be used against you. For example, a picture of you engaged in sporting events or participating in social activities can be used to claim that your described injuries are not as serious as you have claimed.
Friend Requests and Privacy Settings: Accepting friend requests from unknown individuals, who could be opposing parties or their representatives, is dangerous. Those people could go through your social media accounts to search for any evidence that may go against your claim. It is important to adjust privacy settings and be wary of whom one accepts as a friend online.
Scouring Social Media Profiles: The opposing side will check your presence on the web regularly to find any evidence that can be used. Social media posts will be used to show that you are lying about the extent of your injuries or how they have affected your daily life.
Navigating Social Media During Personal Injury Litigation
Avoid Discussing Legal Matters: It is essential to avoid discussing your personal injury case, ongoing litigation, or legal proceedings on social media. Such discussions can provide the opposing party with valuable insights into your strategy and claims.
Limit Online Interactions: Be cautious with your online interactions, including what you share and with whom you interact. Avoid posting details about your injury claims, treatment, or recovery process.
Exercise Caution with Physical Activities: Posts that depict you engaging in physical activities or travel can be particularly damaging. Defense attorneys might argue that these activities are inconsistent with the injuries you have reported.
Seek Guidance from Experienced Attorneys: Personal injury attorneys often advise clients to exercise caution with social media usage. They can provide guidance on how to manage your online presence to avoid potentially harmful posts.
Review Privacy Settings: Regularly review and update your privacy settings to limit access to your social media accounts. This can help protect your information from being easily accessible to opposing parties.
How Social Media Can Harm Your Case
How Can Social Media Presence Posting Impact Your Personal Injury Case? 2 Social media presence and posting affect insurance claims when there’s an accident. There are various scenarios where social media presence can impact your injury case, and it varies according to state laws. In the state of California, posting details on social media concerning personal injuries or accidents can be used to reduce or altogether avoid any compensation claims being given to the plaintiff since documents, images, and videos posted online are considered public written documents by the law.
There are a couple of cases where your social media posts can be used against you by the law and will hurt your personal injury case. Some such cases include:
- Posting Accident Scene Pictures: Taking pictures of the accident scene and posting them on social media platforms is now subject to public scrutiny. It can be structured to appear like injuries sustained are more trivial than the plaintiff portrays and can easily be twisted, resulting in reduced compensations. Pictures and the like should be reserved only for the plaintiff’s attorney to serve as evidence for a case.
- Admitting Guilt: Posts that look like you’re admitting to guilt or anything that could be twisted to seem like you apologized will hurt your case.
- Discussing Your Case: Sharing any details about your personal injury case online can provide ammunition for the defense.
- Health Updates: Posting updates about your recovery can be used to argue against the severity of your injuries.
- Character Attacks: Social media rants or unrelated posts can be used to question your character.
- Activity Posts: Sharing pictures or videos indicates any day-to-day activity, like recreational and sporting events, trips taken, and social events you attended. can undermine your claims.
- Tagging in Posts: Being frequently tagged in posts by friends or family can reveal activities that contradict your claims.
- Location Sharing: Any post that shares your location at any point in time (check-in) could reflect you being at places that could trivialize your claims.
Precautions to Protect Your Personal Injury Case
Social media posting is considered public information in California and will most likely be used in court if the opposing side’s attorneys deem it fit. Avoid certain situations and take the necessary steps to ensure the success of your personal injury case. Some of the steps you can take include the following:
- Avoid Posting About Your Case: Regardless of how careful one might try to be while posting social media content about a case they’re involved in, there’s a considerable possibility of slipping up and dropping information that contradicts an initial claim.
- Confidential Conversations: Keep all conversations with your attorney confidential until the case is closed and family and friends are included because they will be linked back to you. Even when you dial back on social media use, ask your family and friends to exclude you from posts and keep a close watch on the content you’re tagged in.
- Manage Friend Requests: Engage and accept follow and connection requests from only people well-known to you until the case is closed. Otherwise, avoid all new requests, especially from unknown people.
- Set Profiles to Private: Making your social media content private is a step you can consider to limit the reach of your content. Although it is not a license to disregard all the cases cited that could affect your case. It’s simply a precaution while you take the necessary steps to ensure your content will ultimately not hurt your personal injury case.
- Avoid Deleting Posts: Avoid making posts you must delete, as this might lead to sanctions.
- Consult Your Attorney: Consult with your attorney on what content is fit for sharing before making any post.
- Stay Off Social Media: Ultimately, if it can be avoided, stay off social media entirely until the case is closed to get a fair trial.
Legal Considerations in California
However, with all social media precautions known, it’s also essential to know the limitations when considering filing a personal injury lawsuit in California. Hence, you’re well-equipped with all the necessary information.
The plaintiff can only file a personal injury lawsuit within two years from when the injuries or accident occurred. Afterward, you don’t have any legal right to demand compensation from the defendant.
The exceptions to this limitation include:
Delayed Discovery:
A “delayed discovery,” where the 2-year period starts when the discovery is made.
Defendant Out of State:
If the defendant moved out of California before the lawsuit, an extension could be granted on those grounds. The entire period in which the defendant is out of the state is disregarded.
Minor or Mentally Unfit Plaintiffs:
The 2-year limitations may also be delayed because the plaintiff is under the age of 18 or is not mentally fit. In both situations, the limitation starts to apply once the plaintiff is of age or mentally fit to file.
Certain cases, such as those involving government entities, medical negligence, rape, and domestic violence, have different statutes of limitations.
Call Bojat Law Group: Your Personal Injury Lawyers!
That being said, it is wise to consult and obtain a personal injury attorney promptly to begin the processing of filing a case after an accident. You should also seek proper legal counsel concerning how social media presence posting can affect your personal injury case to ensure the chance of success.
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