Social Media And Personal Injury: Can Facebook And Twitter Hurt Your Car Accident Case?
Posted on: 19 August 2016
If you hire a personal injury attorney to represent you in your car accident case, they may caution you against interacting verbally and physically with the other driver's insurance company during your case. However, you might think that it's okay to share information and updates about your case with friends and family either personally or through social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. While there's nothing wrong with keeping worried loved ones updated about your health, it might come back to haunt you later if you discuss pertinent details about your case. What you say and how you behave on Facebook and Twitter can possibly make or break your case if the other driver's insurer or attorney finds out about it. Here's how social media can hurt your case and what you can do instead.
How Can Facebook and Twitter Be Bad For Your Case?
While social media outlets can be positive options to communicate, share and reach out to friends and family, the platforms aren't always the best places to reveal pertinent, private or legal information about personal injury cases. A number of insurance companies and their attorneys look to social media as a way to discredit accident claimants. Even a private page can be accessed and reviewed by the other driver's legal representation if your public page contains things that peak their interests.
For instance, if you claim to have a back injury that prevents you from engaging in any type of activity, placing pictures of you at a recent barbecue on your Facebook public page may not be a good idea. The insurance company's lawyers might say that you lied about your injuries and deny you benefits.
Tweeting about the progress of your personal injury case may hurt you as well. Twitter allows you to keep your tweets private or make them public. If someone wants to view your private tweets, they send out a request to become your follower. You may inadvertently allow the insurer's attorneys to access your Twitter page and its contents. If you forget to make your page private, anyone can view them by default. If you tweet that your attorney is almost done with your case and will obtain a settlement for you soon, the other party may try to stall the case or come up with reasons they can't settle your claim.
You want to avoid the above problems at all costs to protect your case.
What Should You Do Instead of Sharing Information on Social Media?
One of the things you might do is only discuss your case with your spouse. However, only reveal as much information about your case to your spouse as your personal injury attorney allows. It may keep your loved one from accidentally revealing valuable case information to the other driver's adjuster and/or attorneys. Although it doesn't apply to all insurance adjusters, some individuals use dirty tactics to avoid paying accident claims.
For instance, the adjuster working on the at-fault driver's case may try to gain you or your spouse's trust by acting sincere and sympathetic to your plight. The insurance adjuster may call your home and tell your spouse to contact the insurance company right away if they know anything that can speed up your case. If your medical bills caused many financial problems for your family, your spouse may reach out to the adjuster in hopes of getting a faster settlement for you.
Also, avoid commenting on your social media pages about your health status, even if you experience progress with physical therapy or another type of treatment. The adjuster may reduce the amount of your accident claim if they don't think you need it. The reduced claim may hurt you in the future if you experience a setback with your injuries.
If you need more information about how social media can harm your personal injury case, contact a personal injury attorney today.
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