If you bring a personal injury lawsuit against a person or company that harmed you, then you’re probably not happy about it. While it’s true that some people seem to have litigious natures, most individuals don’t like having to show up in court. They also don’t enjoy meeting with lawyers and hashing out the details of what happened that hurt them or made them ill.
Sometimes, you have little choice in the matter. Even if you would prefer not to get into that sort of quagmire, maybe your injury or illness cost you money if you couldn’t work. You may have doctor bills quickly piling up.
Collecting evidence in personal injury cases then becomes necessary. You will doubtless want to recoup your financial losses, but maybe you also feel the individual or business entity that harmed you should pay because you experienced pain and suffering. Perhaps you also can’t do many of the things you once could. In the legal world, attorneys call this loss of consortium.
You and your lawyer, along with their investigator or investigative team, can come up with evidence that should help you if your case ever gets to trial. If you show the defendant and their lawyer enough evidence during the discovery phase, then maybe they will offer you a settlement. That means you will never have to see in the inside of a courtroom, which will doubtless make you happy.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common kinds of evidence that might lead to you winning your lawsuit or getting a settlement offer from the defendant.
Pictures
They say that a picture equals a thousand words, and that’s true in many instances. You can talk till you’re blue in the face to try and convince someone of something, but if you show them visual evidence, that often convinces them a lot faster that you have a valid viewpoint.
That’s true with lawsuits. If you can show the jury pictures that prove what you sat happened, or if you show the defendant and their lawyer before the trial, that might get you a win or induce a settlement offer.
You won’t always have pictures that prove what you say happened, but you might in some instances. For example, maybe you’re suing a reckless driver who exceeded the speed limit and plowed into your car. If you can show pictures that your car camera took that capture the violence of the collision, that might prove the other driver acted recklessly.
Video Evidence
If you can get pictures that show your version of events, that’s great, but if you can show the jury video evidence, that’s even better. In that same car wreck scenario, maybe you have video evidence that comes from a dashboard camera on your vehicle. You might also get some from a store camera nearby that picked up the incident.
Maybe you got footage from a traffic camera instead. Video evidence won’t just help you with car wreck lawsuits, though.
You might also have video evidence if someone assaulted you, and you’re suing them afterward. If someone assaulted you and you’re suing them because they hurt you, you’re bringing a civil lawsuit, but the police will also go after them with criminal charges. These sorts of situations happen relatively often with people who can’t control their temper.
Medical Reports
You can get a medical report that backs up what you say occurred. If you saw a doctor after a car wreck, an assault, a slip-and-fall in a store, or anything along those lines, then you can get paperwork that clearly states what the doctor observed when they treated you.
This paperwork will mention all of your injuries. You can then demand that the person you’re suing pay you for the monetary damages if you had to pay the doctor. If you had to spend some time in the emergency room, that’s probably an even higher bill for which someone must reimburse you.
You might also have paperwork following a surgery that you had to go through to repair damages that you believe someone else caused. The more documentation you can produce, the better.
Eyewitnesses
Maybe you can produce some eyewitnesses who saw what happened. That might occur in car wreck cases, assault cases, and many more situations where you’re suing a person or entity.
In slip-and-fall cases, you’re getting into premises liability law. Perhaps another shopper saw you slip on a wet floor if that establishment didn’t leave out adequate signage telling you to exercise caution.
You might produce an eyewitness who saw someone punch you if you’re suing an individual following an assault. No matter the reason why you’re suing someone, having a witness standing by who can get up on the stand and tell a jury what happened should help you get the compensation you feel you deserve.
Police Reports
You might get a police report that backs up your version of events. This should always exist in one of the car wreck scenarios that we’ve described.
In such situations, the police will arrive on the scene and file a report that explains what you say happened, as well as what they personally observed. Even if the other driver claims something completely different occurred, they can’t argue with a police report. If they try to, the jury probably won’t believe them, and you will more than likely win your case.
In many situations, you will be able to produce several of these kinds of evidence instead of just one. If so, then it’s much more likely that the defendant will try to settle with you before the trial ever begins.
Their lawyer might recommend that. If they are stubborn, and they try to take you to trial, this preponderance of evidence will probably sink their defense.
You’d hope that you’ll never end up in court suing someone, but if you do, the more evidence you collect, the better.
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