How Social Media Can Impact Your Personal Injury Claim

In today’s world, it is very common for people to chronicle their daily lives on various social media platforms.  While these activities make it easier to stay connected with friends and family near and far, it is important to know that legally, everything posted on social media is considered to be public information.  Therefore, if you are involved in a personal injury claim, your social media postings could be used against you in court.

For this reason, an experienced personal injury attorney will advise you to discontinue all social media postings while you are involved in the litigation process.  However, if you find you cannot remove yourself from that realm completely, you should adhere to the following advice:

• Change the settings of your social media account to private.
• Do not post anything online regarding your personal injury case.  This includes communication with your insurance company, doctor’s visits, and meetings with your attorney.
• Do not post any updates on your health.  This includes your overall physical condition, treatment regimen, and injuries.  Such updates can easily be taken out of context and used by an opposing attorney to call into question your honesty regarding your injuries thereby harming your case.
• While your case is in process, do not post anything related to any physical activities you are taking part in, as opposing attorneys could use it to argue that you are not as injured as you claim.  For the same reason, do not post anything about vacations or travel of any sort.
• Ask your friends and family members to cease posting photos of you online while your case is in process.  Additionally, ask them to please not post about any of the above mentioned items on their pages or yours.

Finally, once a settlement has been reached, neither you nor friends or family should post anything about the settlement offer, as it could be considered a violation of your settlement agreement.