You don't have to be a teen these days to enjoy Facebook or other social networking sites. Even the odd lawyer (ahem) has been known to partake in this growing phenomenon.
You may be under the impression that Facebook has no connection to an injury claim. Right? Think again.
Numerous court cases over the last year and a half in Ontario have held that an accident claimant is required to permit access to and save his or her Facebook materials to be shown to the insurer's lawyers.
The right to access this personal information has been considered to be part of the discovery process that forms part of every lawsuit. However, the advent of this new source of potential information about the accident victim's post-traumatic lifestyle has introduced a whole new invasive aspect to discovery.
An individual hired by the insurance company to to surveillance of a claimant will now automatically also do internet surveillance. If, like many people, you use your Facebook profile as a journal or chronical of your day, you could be providing significant fodder to the insurance company. Plus, because of the dynamic nature of the sites, you will not have a record of what you said six months ago on a particular day. However, if that is a day the insurance company was monitoring, the insurance company will have that record and may use it against you.
Using MySpace, or Facebook, the insurer can see your trip pictures, read commentary about your outings or otherwise glean or conclude that you are not affected by the accident the way you claim to be.
The difficulty for injured victims is that there is probably a very reasonable explanation for why you wrote "I danced until dawn" in your online profile. However, by the time you get to trial, you will have forgotten what it was! The jury is left with this admission, by you, to contrast with your stated disabilities.
Our firm has asked our injured clients not to participate in this type of on-line activity. Where using these sites is unavoidable, the claimants must be wary of what is posted. This includes not only their own profiles, but also on friends and family members' profiles too.
Watch for photos "tagging you" too from parties or weddings.
A claims examiner or insurance defence lawyer is not who you want listed on your site as your "friend".
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Richard Auger and Brenda Hollingsworth represent accident victims in Ontario, Canada. Their law firm is Auger Hollingsworth, located in Ottawa. They have written "An Injured Victim's Guide to Fair Compensation". To get free copy of this book, contact
http://www.ottawalawfirm.ca ; email info@ottawalawfirm.ca or call 613.233.4529.
