Once you file a personal injury lawsuit, much of your focus has to be on proving the legal elements of your case. While this means that you’ll have to be on the offensive throughout your case, you can’t overlook the reality that you’ll also have to play a fair bit of defense. This is because the defendant in your case will do everything they can to attack the validity and viability of your claim. If you’re unprepared to counter those assertions, then your legal arguments can take a hit, perhaps even to the point that you recover far less than you need or even lose your case altogether.
This can leave you especially worried if you feel like you may have said something that’s harmful to your case. It happens all the time.
Car accident victims, under the stress of the crash, make apologies to the other driver, or they speculate as to what they might’ve done wrong to contribute to the wreck. You should, of course, do your best to avoid these sorts of statements, but even if you’ve already made them, there may be ways to mitigate the damage they cause to your case.
Here are some steps that you might be able to take to maintain the viability of your case despite the statements that you’ve made:
- Attack credibility: Even if you made a statement that may be somewhat damaging to your case, the defendant might exaggerate or take your words out of context to cause additional harm to your claim. Here, you may be able to question the reliability and credibility of the defendant or other witness who is testifying to your statements so that the jury will give their account less weight. This may minimize the harm that your statements end up causing to your case.
- Contextualize: Even if you contributed to the accident in question, there’s a chance that you can still win your case. It’s just that the amount of compensation that you end up walking away with could be reduced by the amount of fault allocated to you. So, try to contextualize your statements and your actions in the grand scheme of the wreck. Again, this can minimize the impact that your statements end up having on the outcome of your case.
- Use the rules of evidence: Although you’re a party opponent and your statements will generally be admitted into evidence without much issue, there may be circumstances where you’re able to block evidence from being admitted. For example, if the defense tries to admit social media posts, you might be able to object on foundational issues. Try to be creative here to see what you can do to block harmful evidence from being used against you.
Don’t let your own statements derail your personal injury case
We know there’s a lot of stress involved with navigating a personal injury case, but don’t let the pressure lead to mistakes like making harmful statements or failing to appropriately generate a legal strategy to address them. Instead, you should get to work now building a legal strategy that protects the strength your case.
