Lawyers often warn their clients – and anyone else who will listen – that they should be careful about posting on social media while they are involved in any lawsuit. This is especially true of injury lawsuits, where our lawyers often recommend that clients shut down their social media or strictly limit posts while involved in a case.
Social media posts that you made – or that others made – could be used against you in a car accident case. This commonly happens when posts have pictures that contradict how injured you truly are or show injuries healed earlier than you are claiming. However, statements you make on social media can also be used against you if they say something other than what you are claiming in your case.
For a free case assessment for your car accident claim, call the Georgia car accident lawyers at Howe Law at (844) 876-4357.
How Photos from Social Media Posts Can Hurt Your Car Accident Case in Georgia
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but in the case of many social media posts, one photo can tell a whole story. Imagine for a second that you are a juror sitting on a car accident case where the plaintiff claims that they broke their leg and can’t ride a bike anymore. Then, the defense lawyer introduces a photo from the victim’s Instagram of them riding a bike a week before trial started.
This scenario explains two of the main ways that pictures on social media can be used to hurt your case. First, they can be used to undermine your claims about how serious your injury is. For one, the photo in the example above could be an old picture, or it might have been taken after the injury healed. Either way, it will harm the jury’s opinion of the plaintiff. Second, they can be used to undermine your claims about how the injury affected your life. Pain and suffering damages are often built up by discussing what you can and cannot do after the injury, and photos to the contrary will destroy such a claim.
Our Atlanta car accident lawyers often encourage our clients to stop posting photos altogether while their cases are pending – even old photos. We also encourage them to be careful about who else they let post photos of them, as photos from someone else’s Facebook or Instagram can also be used against you if they are relevant and legally obtained.
Can Statements I Made on Social Media Hurt My Car Accident Case in Georgia?
While photos can be damaging, there are also social media text posts that could destroy a case. For example, a driver texting, “just crashed my car lol,” would be very embarrassing and could potentially be used to shut down the driver’s claims that someone else caused the crash. Most social media posts introduced in a car accident case will not be so obvious, but they could hurt your case in three major ways:
Undermining the Facts
If you or someone else posts about what happened in the crash, that is now online as a contemporary record of what happened while the accident was fresh in your mind. If the statement was made by someone else, it might not be admissible as evidence, but anything that you post will be admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule.
In a practical sense, this means that if you said one thing earlier but are now saying a different thing in your car accident claim, they can use the posts to say what the truth truly is. For example, an admission of fault like, “I crashed my car,” could be introduced as evidence and potentially end any claim that someone else was at fault.
Undermining Memory
If your story changes over time, the jury will not trust your memory of the events. People involved in car crashes are made to give statements at various points in the case: to the police officer at the scene, to the insurance companies, to counsel in depositions, and on the stand at trial. If these statements do not match, the defendant’s lawyers can confront you with the inconsistent prior statements and argue that you do not remember what happened.
Any additional statements you make – such as things you said to a friend or posts you made on social media – are additional statements that risk being inconsistent.
Undermining Credibility
Inconsistent statements can also be used to show that you are lying. For example, if you said immediately after the crash that the car that hit you was a beat-up silver Honda Civic, but now you are suing someone who was driving a bright red Porsche, you might be shown to be lying in this case.
Defense counsel can also use social media posts that you made about other things to show that you have the character of a liar. While posts need to be relevant to be used as evidence of facts, evidence of untrustworthiness can be broader. Posts showing that you have lied in the past could potentially be introduced to paint you as a liar more broadly.
What Social Media Posts Can Be Used Against Me in a Car Accident Lawsuit in Georgia?
Not everything you put online will be relevant to your car accident case. For example, a controversial statement from 10 years ago or a strong political opinion usually will not be admissible in any way. Nonetheless, many seemingly random statements and photos can be pieced together into a narrative that a lawyer could use against you.
As such, it is often best to close or suspend your accounts while your case is pending. Even if you block lawyers or lock down your account, people already following you might be convinced to turn over your posts to the defense.
Call Our Georgia Car Accident Attorneys Today
For a free case evaluation, call (844) 876-4357 to speak with Howe Law’s East Point, GA car accident attorneys.
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