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Don't Let Facebook Hurt Your Accident Case

By: Brenda Hollingsworth and Richard Auger

Many of us who are now beyond our teen years are starting to enjoy the novelty and interaction of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. (One of the lawyers at Auger Hollingsworth is hooked! We'll let you wonder which one.)

You may be under the impression that Facebook has no connection to an injury claim. Right? Think again.

There have been several court decisions over the past 18 months in Ontario where an injured victim has been required to allow access to, and preserve, his or her Facebook profile for review by the insurance company's lawyers.

The ability to obtain this private information is deemed to be a fair part of the "discovery" process that is a step in every court case. 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 Facebook or MySpace, the insurance company can review your vacation photos, comments you make about your weekend or anything else that they may use to suggest that you are not as injured as you claim or that your injuries have not affected your life.

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! This admission by you will contrast sharply to the jury who is left to evaluate your 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".

Article Source: http://free-article-depot.com

Brenda Hollingsworth and Richard Auger are lawyers acting for accident victims in Ontario, Canada at Auger Hollingsworth, located in Ottawa. They wrote "An Injured Victim's Guide to Fair Compensation". To get free copy of this book, contact www.ottawalawfirm.ca ; email info@ottawalawfirm.ca or call 613.233.4529.

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