Your best strategy, by far, is to be open and honest with
your doctors and lawyer.
Private investigators are always hoping that they can catch
accident victims in a lie. This will make their day, unfortunately. For
example, if you have told your doctors that you never mow your lawn and they
have a video of you trying to mow your lawn, they will use this video as
evidence that you have lied. This situation is even worse if you have stated,
under oath at a Discovery Hearing, that you never mow the lawn. Defense
attorneys would then try to use this to argue, not only that you lied about
mowing the lawn, but that you are a dishonest person and are also lying about
your injuries. This will make their day.
It is also very helpful to try to be specific and clear when
you're talking your doctors, your lawyer, insurance adjusters and opposing
lawyers. For example, if you have said that you can't mow the lawn, maybe you
mean that you can't mow the lawn like you used to. If this is what you mean,
this is what you need to say.
Most accident victims, even those with serious and multiple
injuries, are able to do many activities. Very few injuries actually involved
paralysis. You may be able to do the dishes, wash your car or drive your
children to school. When you talk about doing these activities, it is important
to be clear and specific about just how much you can do. Can you wash the dishes
for a few minutes at a time, but not be able to wash all the dishes at once
like you used to? Maybe, you can even mow the lawn, but only for 10 min. at a
time. When you are specific about these kinds of details, this also makes it
easier for your doctors to be specific and to help you when it comes time for
them to do a report about your injuries.
These ideas are really common sense. But it is hard to use
your common sense when you are so nervous about private investigators and
insurance companies trying to hurt you and your family.
Please check for
regular posts. I will be returning to this topic over and over again.
Thank you for reading and please let your friends know about
what you have learned from The Chronic Pain Letter.
Yours truly care - Mike
Michael@RenfordBooks.com
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