As you know, my law firm has over forty (40) years combined experience in litigating personal injury cases. Recently, insurance adjusters and insurance defense attorneys have become very aggressive in looking for client’s posting on social media sites. Facebook, MySpace, individual blogs, and Twitter are all targets for insurance companies and their representatives to look for items for which they can use against you. You should know they have no problem distorting information or photographs to make it appear as if a client is not telling the truth by distorting the facts.
We strongly recommend that if you have a personal injury case that you take down any Facebook, Twitter, personal blogs or MySpace account or make any comments, especially posting any photographs that would cause insurance companies to take them out of context and attempt to associate them with a date “after” an injury, even though facts depicted in the photo took place beforehand. Just the fact that the insurance company is presenting this to a jury can cause confusion. Juries generally like cases that are as simple and as clear as possible for them to render a verdict on the Plaintiff’s side. Thus, insurance companies are trying to throw up as much dust and distraction as possible, to either get the Plaintiff zero/nothing or to keep the verdict as low as possible because they are questioning all or part of the facts of the case. Therefore, we strongly recommend that all social media sites be taken down or turned off during the course of any litigation.
At least, make these sites very private and allow only your friends access to these sites. Additionally, be aware of any posting of photographs or other types of posting where you are either depicted or mentioned on someone else’s page. If this is done by a friend or family member, they can find themselves as a witness against you and their words and photographs, again, will be taken out of context to benefit the insurance company. For question about how social media can effect your case contact our office at 877-444-2929 for a free consultation.
