After suffering from a serious personal injury due to the negligence of another in Maryland, most of our clients focus on getting better. In fact, in the past we would instruct clients that going to the doctor was all they needed to do, with the rise of social media this has now changed.
All Portner & Shure clients are now instructed that they need to be aware that the defendant's insurance company may be viewing their Facebook and Twitter posts. In fact, posts are now discoverable during the course of litigation. Discovery is permissible regardless of whether privacy settings have been set to allow limited access. All of our injury clients are specifically told, therefore that they should no longer post anything that could be considered relevant to their claims.
Once a post is made that could be viewed as harmful to any injury cases, your lawyer cannot ethically instruct you to delete the post. Be aware, in short, that social media posts that are inconsistent with your claim can actually destroy settlements.
Not long ago our injury firm only had to instruct clients in work injury cases or serious injury cases, that doing activities inconsistent with their claim could be caught on video tape. Despite my warnings, I did have several cases that I remember distinctly where a video tape of my clients activities was played at trial. Once, a client claiming a serious injury was found bowling. Another, a sympathetic nice Chinese speaking client, claimed she could not do any activities, yet was filmed raking leaves. Another, a man who claimed he could not raise his arms or lift anything, was filmed putting a rack on top of his car, and filling it with luggage and vacation items. Now, I fear defense attorneys can easily use documents revealing damaging statements, or pictures. from social media.
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