How to Use Common Personal Injury Mistakes to Your Advantage

Personal injury claims can be difficult to prove and are filled with pitfalls for plaintiffs, even when they are represented by experienced counsel. Regardless of the plaintiff’s cause of action — whether it is a slip and fall, products liability, or medical malpractice claim — there are plenty of opportunities for plaintiffs to make mistakes, and they do so frequently. Savvy defendants know how to recognize these mistakes. The best way to use common personal injury mistakes to your advantage is with the help of a North Carolina personal injury defense attorney.  

Delaying Medical Treatment 

For one reason or another, personal injury plaintiffs often delay seeking medical care for their injuries. This may be because they don’t feel that they are in that much pain, or perhaps they are waiting for pain to develop. In many cases, the plaintiff may seek emergency medical treatment but fail to follow up with their primary care physician or any specialists the ER recommends. 

These mistakes can open several lines of attack for defendants: 

1. Delaying medical treatment indicates that the plaintiff is not actually injured or that their injuries are not as severe as they claim
2. If delaying medical treatment exacerbates the plaintiff’s injuries, those exacerbated injuries are not attributable to the accident, and the defendant is, therefore, not liable for them. 

Ignoring Treatment Plans 

Medical treatment plans can be painful and difficult to follow. As a result, many plaintiffs fail to stick to them as they should. Similar to delaying medical treatment, ignoring treatment plans casts doubt on the severity of the plaintiff’s injury and can result in exacerbations of the plaintiff’s injuries that are not attributable to the defendant’s actions. 

Misrepresenting Injuries 

Plaintiffs can misrepresent their injuries in several ways. First, they might exaggerate the extent of the injury, particularly the extent to which the injury has impacted their daily lives. Second, some plaintiffs fail to disclose preexisting conditions. While the presence of a preexisting condition does not necessarily relieve a defendant of liability, it can significantly reduce their liability, as their liability generally extends only to the aggravation and/or exacerbation of the preexisting injury that is attributable to their actions. Preexisting conditions can significantly complicate personal injury cases, including on the defendant’s side. If a preexisting injury is at issue in your situation, you should consider speaking to a North Carolina personal injury defense attorney. 

Failing to Document the Accident 

The plaintiff bears the burden of proof in personal injury cases, which, for most personal injury claims, requires them to prove the four elements of negligence: duty, breach, causation, and damages. Plaintiffs most often document their accidents with photographs, witness statements, and police reports. But in many cases, plaintiffs fail to fully document the circumstances of their accident or maintain their evidence. Holes like these present opportunities for defendants to challenge the sufficiency of plaintiffs’ evidence in litigation. 

Failing to Document the Injury 

Delaying medical treatment can also have evidentiary repercussions for plaintiffs. Without proper medical documentation of their injuries, it is much harder for plaintiffs to prove that the defendant caused them. For example, defendants could argue that the plaintiff’s injuries were not, in fact, caused by their actions but that the plaintiff suffered the injuries in an unrelated accident. Defendants can also use a lack of medical evidence to challenge the severity of the plaintiff’s injuries, which may help reduce potential pain and suffering damages. 

Contributing to the Accident 

Plaintiffs are not always blameless in the events giving rise to their legal claims. For example, consider a scenario in which Driver A is making an illegal U-turn at an intersection when Driver B runs a stop sign at the intersection, striking Driver A and causing her injuries. Under the contributory negligence doctrine followed in North Carolina, plaintiffs in personal injury cases are barred from recovery if they were even partially at fault for their accidents, which Driver A in the above hypothetical likely would be found to be. However, contributory negligence is an affirmative defense, and the defendant bears the burden of proving it. Our North Carolina personal injury defense attorneys can help defendants argue contributory negligence. 

Waiting Too Long to File a Claim 

North Carolina law encourages plaintiffs to be diligent in pursuing their claims. To that end, the state sets and enforces strict statutes of limitations, which are temporal cutoff points that prohibit plaintiffs from filing claims after a certain amount of time has passed after the events giving rise to the claim. North Carolina’s statute of limitations for personal injury claims generally is three years and begins to run once the physical harm to the plaintiff becomes apparent. Defendants can exploit a plaintiff’s delay in filing a claim to argue that the statute of limitations has run or, in the alternative, to challenge the freshness of the plaintiff’s evidence. 

Making Careless Posts on Social Media 

A plaintiff’s social media profiles can be goldmines for defendants. This is because many plaintiffs are careless about what they post on social media. For example, consider a scenario in which a plaintiff in a slip and fall case is seeking damages for a broken leg that prevents him from engaging in nearly any manual labor. The plaintiff then posts a photograph on social media depicting him pulling weeds in a flower bed in his garden. Even if that photograph does not tell the whole story, it casts serious doubt on the veracity of the plaintiff’s claim, and a defendant can use it to argue that the plaintiff is not as injured as he claims. 

Beat Personal Injury Claims With Help From a North Carolina Personal Injury Defense Attorney 

Even though plaintiffs bear the burden of proof in personal injury cases, there are many opportunities for defendants to poke holes in a plaintiff’s claim — some of which plaintiffs provide themselves. For more information about beating personal injury claims, please contact a North Carolina personal injury defense attorney at Harris, Creech, Ward & Blackerby by calling 252-638-6666 or using our online contact form.