Avoid Doing Harm to Your Case

Transcript: Hi. I’m Indiana personal injury attorney David Holub.

This video discusses things that you can do which actually can harm your case and why it’s important to follow our instructions not to do these harmful things.

Before I get into detail, however, I would like to point out that the remedy to these things that can do harm to your case is, in almost every instance, to be truthful and honest in the way you are responding to requests for information from your attorney and requests for information from the defendant’s side of the case. In other words, each of the harmful things that can be done usually flow from a failure to be truthful and honest. For example, it’s perfectly fine if you have had a past accident or a past injury. What is not perfectly fine is to hide that past accident or attempt to hide that past injury.

Once we know that you’ve had past accidents, it’s perfectly within the ability of the law to deal with those kinds of situations. People have prior injuries and those injuries get aggravated, and the law allows them to make a recovery. Another example of things that go wrong is when a person fails to file tax returns. For example, if you haven’t filed tax returns for several years, it may impact your ability to make an earnings loss claim. Part of the thinking becomes whether you have delayed or failed to file a tax return for honest reasons or for reasons that may be less than honest. For example, we once had a client who was making lots of money, but was doing it through an illegal business, and was not paying taxes, nor filing tax returns.

We had to tell this particular individual that type of a claim for illegal earnings is not going to be something we can present in court to a jury. On the other hand, we’ve had lots of clients who forgot to file tax returns or realized that they just didn’t have all the information and they were a year or two behind. This situation can easily be remedied by seeing an accountant and filing back-tax returns. Another example of things people do to harm their case is to exaggerate. If there are things that you absolutely cannot do, it’s perfectly fine to say, “I can’t do these things.”

But if there are things you can do but you do them much slower, or you feel a lot of pain after them, the proper response is not simply to say, “I can’t do these things,” but to say, “These things cause me a lot of pain, I have to slow down, I have to take breaks.” Be truthful and accurate, don’t exaggerate. Another important thing that people sometimes fail to do, which harms their case, is they fail to do what their doctor advises them to do.

For example, if a doctor says go to physical therapy, or take a particular medication, it’s not appropriate to fail to do what the doctor says on your own choice. Now, on the other hand, if taking the medication makes you nauseous, tell the doctor. Ask for a new medication. Don’t just stay home with your pain and ignore what your doctor’s advice is, check with your doctor and ask for new medication, if that ‘s the solution. And if you go to physical therapy and it hurts you, tell the therapist, don’t just stop going to therapy. Another thing that people do that hurts their cases is to fail to seek out solid medical advice. And by that I mean when you are trying to bring a lawsuit, most of the time a nurse practitioner or a chiropractor cannot offer medical opinion in court because they’re not a medical doctor. So, even though we never refer people to doctors, we do encourage people to look within their insurance policies for credible and top doctors that can treat them and get them well, as well as have the qualifications to testify in court, if we get to the stage of testifying in court.

Now, that’s not to say that in all cases an acupuncturist or a chiropractor would not be a good selection for a medical-related remedy, but I would suggest in those cases where you want to use unconventional medical care, that you clear it with your medical doctor who is licensed. These are just some of the things that people can do to harm their case. Check out our website for more informational videos.

[tweetthis] [/tweetthis]