After being struck by a drunk driver or slipping and falling in a puddle left in an aisle of a retail store, you might feel pretty confident that your personal injury claim is a guaranteed win. But you must be aware that there are always ways a case can tip out of your favor. In fact, there are six commonly-made mistakes plaintiffs make that strip away their winnings and put liability for their injuries back onto themselves. Needless to say, these mistakes must be avoided first and foremost.

1. Oversharing: The only people who should really know all the details of your personal injury claim from your perspective are yourself and your personal injury attorney. Beyond that, no one, not even close family members, need all the specifics. Spreading your story around to numerous people increases the chance of inconsistencies between iterations, which lowers your credibility and chances of securing maximized compensation.
2. Social media: In line with telling too many people about your case, you should avoid talking about it on social media. Facebook and Twitter are great places to vent your frustrations but they are not the right forum when you are still fighting for compensation. Even information you put on private accounts could potentially be accessed by the defendant, who will be looking everywhere for evidence of your negligent behavior that could be the cause of your injuries.
3. Fast settlements: It is surely tempting to accept the first settlement offer you are given – guaranteed money seems pretty great – but you must resist. Don’t sign anything without talking to your attorney first. You could be signing for a fraction of the coverage you deserve and require. Rather than outright refusing an offer, just let them know that you must talk to your lawyer about it.
4. Falsifying information: No matter what happened during your accident or the incident that led to your injuries, don’t lie. Someone will find out eventually and your integrity will be shattered, giving any judges or counsel that get involved with your case plenty of reason to disfavor your argument. Once again, to avoid oversharing and harming your case that way, don’t give recorded statement to insurance companies without first consulting your attorney.
5. Skipping the doctor: If you need to see the doctor dozens of times after your accident, do it. The moment you skip a scheduled doctor’s appointment or checkup is the moment the defendants can claim your injuries were worsened by your inability to follow a doctor’s orders. This would put liability solely onto your shoulders.
6. Losing evidence: When you have evidence regarding your case, you need to keep and copy it. Documents, videos, and photographs should be saved to two separate drives at least. You might even want to look into cloud storage to protect digital files from localized data crashes.

There are a great deal of mistakes a person can inadvertently make when filing a personal injury claim, or waiting for a claim to conclude. In order to keep track of them all and do your best to avoid making them, you should work with Clawson & Clawson, LLP. Our Colorado Springs personal injury attorneys can bring 120+ years of total experience to your case to help you.

Call 719.602.5888 or contact us online to begin.