An area you will need to prepare for before deposition is to know and understand the details of your injuries and medical treatment, including when you first experienced pain and to what areas of your body. For example, did you experience back or neck pain at the scene, did you chose to go to the emergency room that day or the next. Being able to give an accurate statement regarding when you experienced pain, what part of your body has been injured, and what you did as a result of it will be very important to know in your deposition. Thus you should review your medical records with your attorney to make sure you are prepared to give accurate answers to these questions.
One of the ways medical records can assist you in giving accurate answers is that this information is taken down very closely to the time of the crash or when you are experiencing the pain either at the hospital or the doctor’s office. Many times this will give more of an exact answer then you will be able to recall strictly from memory. Most people will be treated many times for an auto accident case. You will not be expected to recite every detail from each visit but you will need to give accurate answers.
Another question you will most likely be asked in a deposition is what you could do before an accident that you cannot do after an auto accident. This is a very deceptive question and is one of the many tricks that insurance defense attorneys will try to use against you. This particular question is tricky because they will literally interpret the word “can” or “cannot”. For example, most people will interpret that to say what you could do without pain before the crash. The way the defense attorneys will interpret it is what you physically are unable to do now that you were physically able to do before the crash. Thus you have two different people listening to this question, having two different perspectives, thus the confusion. The defense attorneys know this question confuses people and that is why they continue to ask it at practically every deposition.
