How Can Social Media Affect Your Personal Injury Claim?
If you have suffered injury in an accident of some kind and is making a claim against the defendant, you must be careful of your actions in the consecutive days of your accident. The insurance company and the party at-fault will try their level best to avoid giving you the rightful compensation. They may take any of your actions or words to prove that you are not worthy to receive the compensation. In order to avoid such things you must be utmost careful in whatever you do and say.
In this context, social media also can pose serious threat to you in your personal injury claim. You have to be very careful about the things you post on the social media platforms after the accident. This is usually told in connection with job search and family matters. But it is all the more important in the case of personal injury.
You must be able to understand if there is any evidence which the defendant may use against you. For this reason, your status updates, posts, selfies etc. on social media must be published only after proper analysis of the content. You should make sure that you are not publishing anything which the insurance company or the defense attorney may use against you in your personal injury claim.
It is common for anyone to file a claim asking the compensation for the medical bills and the physical damage that resulted from the accident. There is a high chance that social media can demean the damages you suffered in the accident. For example, consider the circumstance in which you got injured in a car accident. A few days after the accident you are on your rest bed and surfing through the social media. Then you post the photo or video of you chilling out on the beach with your kids. This can be used as a valid proof against the claim that you have made in your accident. The court may consider you to be not so worthy to receive the compensation.
It is better to make your social media platforms private, after the accident. Narrow down the audience from public to closed private group. Give a second thought before you post something on the social media. Think on what effect the posts you make will have on the legal claim you have made. Also ask your family members to abstain from posting anything about you on the social media. If not careful, social media can play negative and prevent you from receiving the appropriate compensation for your accident and injuries.