People of this age would initially post about their accident if they’ve been hurt in a pedestrian collision. And while providing updates online could help you stay in touch and get support, it can also cause issues with your injury claim.
In order to refute a claimant’s injuries or damages, insurance companies and defense lawyers frequently examine social media activity. A crucial first step in defending your legal rights is understanding how social media can affect your car accident claim.
The risks are not limited to public posts. Courts have repeatedly held that private content, messages, and photos set to friends-only visibility can be compelled through discovery when the content is relevant to a claim. Privacy settings are not a legal shield.
How Insurance Companies and Defense Attorneys Use Social Media
As part of their investigation, insurance companies frequently look through a claimant’s social media accounts. This can start as soon as an accident is reported and go on all the way through the claims procedure. In order to determine whether anything contradicts the limitations or injuries stated in the claim, adjusters may examine public posts, images, check-ins, and tagged content. They can examine this information without a subpoena or court order since it is publicly accessible.Defense attorneys have broader access through the formal discovery process. Once litigation begins, discovery requests can reach beyond what is publicly visible. Courts have routinely approved these discovery demands where the public portions of a claimant’s social media suggest that private content may contradict their testimony.
How Social Media Posts Become Admissible Evidence in Court
Social media posts are subject to the same evidentiary standards that govern all evidence. Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 901 requires that evidence be authenticated before admission. It means that there must be enough evidence to show it is genuine and belongs to the person who allegedly created it.If you or a loved one has been injured in a pedestrian accident caused by a driver, make sure you get the legal help you need. According to Ohio pedestrian accident lawyer Mark S. Gervelis, Esq., and their website overview, experienced attorneys can help protect your rights and advise you on preserving potential evidence which includes social media content. The scope of discoverable social media content extends both backward and forward from the incident.
Defense attorneys frequently request activity from six months before the accident through the present. Pre-accident posts establish the claimant’s baseline physical activity level and lifestyle. Post-accident posts record the course of recovery and can be compared to deposition testimony and medical records.
Why Deleting Posts After an Accident Can Make Your Case Worse
Removing posts from social media that may be relevant to their case is one of the worst things a personal injury claimant can do. This is considered spoliation of evidence, and it can come back to haunt you.A court may impose sanctions if it determines that you purposefully removed pertinent evidence. In certain situations, the jury might be told to assume that anything you removed was detrimental to your case. In the worst situation, you might face additional penalties besides having your entire claim rejected.
Deleting a post after an accident could be much riskier in the long run. Your best bet would be to just leave it alone even if it feels embarrassing or seems completely irrelevant.
Content Posted by Others Can Also Affect Your Claim
A pedestrian accident claimant does not control the social media activity of their friends, family members, or other witnesses. Tagged photographs showing a claimant engaging in physical activity, check-in posts indicating attendance at events, or comments from acquaintances describing the claimant’s activities can all enter the record. Courts have held that third-party posts are discoverable when they contain relevant information and that mutual interaction between the claimant and the third-party post, such as a like, share, or comment, can establish relevance.Informing close contacts that you are involved in a personal injury claim and asking them not to tag you in photographs or publicly reference your activities during the pending case is a reasonable and advisable step. The practical limitation is that you cannot control what others post, and accounts you are not connected to may still document your activities in publicly visible posts.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can an insurance company access my private social media posts?
Insurance adjusters can only view content you have made publicly available. However, if your claim proceeds to litigation, defense attorneys can issue discovery requests for your private social media content. Courts have regularly approved these requests when the public portions of a claimant’s accounts suggest that private content may be relevant to the claimed injuries. Privacy settings reduce who can see your content voluntarily but do not prevent court-ordered disclosure.
Should I delete social media posts after a pedestrian accident?
Do not delete social media posts without first consulting your attorney. Deleting potentially relevant content after litigation is reasonably foreseeable can constitute spoliation of evidence, which courts may sanction through adverse inference instructions or other remedies.
Can posts made before the accident affect my injury claim?
Yes. Defense attorneys routinely request social media activity from the period before the accident to establish the claimant’s baseline physical activity level.
Does metadata from photos I post online affect my case?
Potentially. Photographs uploaded to social media contain embedded metadata. This means they are data ingrained in the photos, like the date and time. Others even contain the GPS location where it was taken. In some platforms, metadata is stripped off these uploaded images, while others preserve it. Photographs that are timestamped during the period when a claimant claims incapacitated are what investigators look for. They find out any inconsistency that could prove or disprove the claim.
Can a defendant’s social media posts help my pedestrian accident claim?
Yes. Social media evidence is bidirectional. Your attorney can pursue discovery of the defendant’s social media activity using the same legal tools available to the defense.
Social media is now an integral part of personal injury litigation, and pedestrian accident claims are no exception. The content that claimants post, fail to post, or delete during the period between an accident and the resolution of a claim forms part of the evidentiary record that both sides evaluate.
The most protective position is to treat every post created after a pedestrian accident as potentially visible to an insurance adjuster, a defense attorney, and a jury.
Sources
- NHTSA — Pedestrian Safety, for federal pedestrian traffic fatality data
- Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 901 — Authenticating or Identifying Evidence (Cornell Legal Information Institute)
- Gervelis Law Firm — Ohio Pedestrian Accident Lawyer
- How Social Media Can Affect Your Car Accident Claim in New Mexico
