Can Social Media Posts Negatively Impact Your Personal Injury Claim?
Social media platforms are firmly ingrained in our society and have changed the way individuals communicate and receive information. You may think your social media post is benign or routine, but what you post on the internet can have a devastating impact on your personal injury claim and the ultimate recovery obtained as a result of your injuries. At such a critical moment in your life, it is important to take all necessary precautions to prevent your social media posts from adversely affecting your personal injury case.
What are the Best Social Media Practices for Those Involved in Personal Injury Cases?
At Burton Law Firm PLLC, we advise our clients to suspend social media activities immediately after an accident occurs. While the law prevents clients from deleting social media posts, we advise clients to activate the most stringent privacy settings on each platform to protect your social media page from the public eye. We also advise client not to accept “friend” or “follow” requests from unknown individuals while your claim or lawsuit is on-going.
There are numerous documented cases of defendants and their lawyers using social media postings to diminish a client’s personal injury damages or claim for compensation. Often, a defendant’s legal team will search for and use the injured party’s social media posts to create a narrative that is contrary to the one being presented in court by the injured party. In fact, seemingly unrelated, “harmless” social media posts made by victims in personal injury cases can greatly affect the outcome of a settlement, even if the posts made by victims make no mention of their accident, medical conditions, or of the legal matters at hand.
In many cases, posts made by personal injury victims that could be perceived as “positive” or “upbeat” have caused the most damage in court. Seemingly positive posts alluding to the injured party’s personal happiness, healthy social life, and/or physical mobility can be presented in court by the defendant’s legal team as evidence that the injured party’s claims of pain, depression, or being unwell are exaggerated or false. In other words, happy, upbeat, and generally positive posts made by injured parties can be used by the defendant’s legal team to argue that the victim(s) in the case is not actually suffering, or that their conditions aren’t “all that bad.”
Therefore, the team at Burton Law Firm PLLC strongly recommends a policy of simply not posting anything at all to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms following a personal injury incident and while your claim or legal case is pending. Our firm also suggests that our clients enact the most stringent privacy settings as soon as an accident occurs, and well before official legal proceedings happen.
With so many questions and much on the line, you need the services of an experienced personal injury attorney to navigate the personal injury claim process and maximize your claim for compensation. Contact Burton Law Firm, PLLC today for a FREE personal injury case consultation so WE can show you why we are so highly recognized for our results in personal injury cases.