3 Easy Ways You May Ruin Your Case

You ruin your case when you misrepresent your level of activity. Everybody’s heard the stories of the private investigator who catches the supposedly injured worker dancing at his daughter’s wedding.  While those cases are rare, more often the private investigator spends three days hiding in your neighbor’s bushes and catches you taking out the garbage, picking up the mail, or even mowing your lawn.  Sometimes, these things must get done in spite of your significant injuries.  But where people get caught is when they claim they can’t do even those simple things and then see the film that proves them wrong.  There’s a phrase in the law that says “false in one thing, false in all things.” When the jury hears this phrase – and then sees you misrepresenting your activity at trial, your case is ruined. You ruin your case when you hide other injuries. The same warning holds true for other injuries.  Your lawyer can assess the value of a potential case only if he knows what injuries you suffered as a result of the accident –and what injuries may be due to pre-existing problems.  You may have legitimate arguments that your present injury aggravated the old injury, or maybe the old injury didn’t disable you as the new injury did.  But if you hide the other injuries, and they are later discovered by the opposing party, your case is ruined. You ruin your case when you hide past accidents from your lawyer. You ruin your case when you hide past accidents from your lawyer. We live in a dangerous world. Everyone has many ways he could be injured, due to more drivers on the road, more distractions in life, more dangerous products polluting the environment, and more products creating dangerous conditions. Not telling your attorney at the first meeting about these past injuries can ruin your case. Let your lawyer decide whether those past injuries are important to your case. If you don’t tell your lawyer, you can be sure that the insurance company’s lawyers will be happy to let him know, but probably when it’s too late to repair any potential damage.