Over the years, social media has developed and contributed a significant role in both the settlement and trial of personal injury cases.

Social Media Posts Can be of Pivotal Importance

Courts across the country have toiled with deciding the admissibility issues surrounding social media content. After being severely injured in a car accident that was caused the carelessness and negligence of another person or legal entity, social media content can be of significant importance. You may feel compelled to share the facts and circumstances of your accident and injuries. That’s perfectly natural but be advised that the sharing of any information regarding the ordeal that you’re currently enduring can be of pivotal importance to the defense and be misconstrued or misinterpreted. An otherwise perfectly viable personal injury case can be turned sideways, and your own words or evidence can be used against you. The value of your case can plummet. Our best advice would be not to say anything or publish anything at all about your accident or injuries until such time as your claim or lawsuit is fully resolved.

How a Social Media Post Might Affect Your Car Accident Claim or Lawsuit

The days of a disposable camera purchased at the local drug store if you forgot to bring one are gone. Lawyers are social animals too, and any photos taken of a crashed car, or the injuries suffered in an accident are ordinarily taken with a cellular telephone.

Assigning Your Case to an Adjuster

After suffering injuries in an accident, one of the first things that an insurance company is going to do is assign your claim or lawsuit to an adjuster. The insurance company’s adjuster will seek you out online and scrutinize any social media accounts belonging to you. The information that you knowingly and willingly share can end up significantly adversely affecting your claim or lawsuit. Contradictory or prior inconsistent statements might be used against you as exceptions to the hearsay evidence rule. A good insurance defense attorney is going to call your credibility into question. Even your location and disabilities might come to issue with photographic evidence that you provide against yourself when you’re legitimately recovering from your injuries, all in an attempt to show that you really weren’t injured to the extent that you claim.

Review Your Privacy Settings

Make sure that your privacy settings are as restrictive as possible. Limit who can access your social media account. That includes your personal information.

How Social Media Investigations are Performed

The use of any social media evidence must be authenticated. Authentication is pivotal to the verification of the evidence sought to be admitted to evidence is actually what it purports to be. The evidentiary foundation must include a showing of the origin of the social media post, when it was posted, who posted it and the chain of custody of the post or photo until such time as it is offered as evidence in court. This is a tedious process that typically involves the following:

• Monitoring the Activity: It’s not just the social media activity of the individual making the personal injury claim. That includes any witnesses in support of the driver who was at fault.
• Obtaining Conflicting Evidence: Obtaining social media posts might show the claimant engaging in strenuous physical activities shortly after his or her accident when he or she was under doctor’s orders to refrain from such activities. Participation in such activities could have a dramatic impact on the claimant’s case.
• Analysis of the Content: One single relevant post about a weekend jaunt to a friend’s cabin on the lake while purportedly recovering from the injuries suffered in an accident can be sufficient to argue that the injuries weren’t as severe as the victim alleges.
• Metadata Use: Metadata as simple as a timestamp can be taken from a social media post and be used to confirm or deny the statements of a claimant or witness.

Positive impacts of Social Media Evidence in Auto Accident Cases

There are certain advantages of social media evidence for victims of auto accidents, but those must be carefully weighed.

• Documenting Injuries: Certain types of injuries might present a picture of pain and suffering when before and after photos might be taken before and after a major surgery. X-rays might not show evidence of an injury to the lumbar spine, but photos of surgical staples and scars might provide some evidence of what the claimant went through to reduce the pain and discomfort. Photos of the claimant on a Florida or California beach recovering from that surgery might not garner as much sympathy if the claimant is from Minnesota.
• Evidence of Magnitude of Impact: An impact in an auto crash case might be sufficient to fracture a driver’s or passenger’s tibia or femur. Photos of a mangled car that was reduced to scrap iron give a perspective not ordinarily seen in car accident cases. On the other hand, photos depicting a light impact with little property damage might profoundly detract from the claimant’s credibility.

A Few “Don’ts”

If you’ve resigned yourself to minimizing your use of social media while recovering from your car crash, here are some hints for avoiding its possible adverse effects during the pendency of your claim or lawsuit:

• Never publish photos of yourself or you’re your activity or inactivity.
• Don’t discuss your accident or injuries with anybody, including responses to remarks.
• Never respond to remarks made by people who you don’t know.
• Don’t respond to friend requests from people you don’t know.
• Don’t delete your posts. They might be recoverable anyway.
• Never remark out of anger or spite to get back at somebody.

Your Social Media Account can be Unknowingly Accessed

It’s entirely possible for an insurance company’s investigator or adjuster to access your social media accounts, even when the settings are private. If you’ve already filed a personal injury lawsuit, they need only bring a motion before the presiding judge stating their belief that relevant and information is believed to be contained in that account. That judge will likely allow them access, and you’ll likewise be ordered to comply with the court’s order. If you don’t, that insurance company probably has somebody else in mind who can access the information sought with costs and expenses to you for your failure to comply with the prior order. Such sanctions won’t be inexpensive either, and you’ll probably be responsible for the costs too.

If it’s just not relevant and material issues that you never dreamed of either. For many of us, social media is very useful for our business and personal lives. If you’re going to use it, use careful judgment. Don’t let social media posts ruin your opportunity for compensation for your injuries and damages. Remember that a week or maybe two might go by, and you’ve already forgotten about what you posted, but the internet just never forgets even the most innocuous detail.