It’s Not Just Lawyers That Investigate A Case
Brian O Sutter
Personal Injury
Once you get into a legal dispute with another driver, business, or property owner about an injury that was unfairly inflicted on you by the other party, a long, drawn out legal battle begins to form up. You, as a plaintiff are now seeking damages, usually financial compensation, in some kind of personal injury lawsuit for a civil court case. You may simply be seeking the compensation you are owed for recovery, or, more tragically, you may be seeking compensation for wrongful death, because a loss of life occurred during the incident.Regardless of the actual circumstances of the case, one thing is going to be very clear from the start. Your accident lawyer is going to be working hard on your behalf to investigate the facts of the case, and assemble whatever team is necessary in order to achieve this goal. However, it’s not your lawyer alone that will be trying to get to the truth of the matter. Insurance companies may also be involved, and some of those investigations may align with your own, while others may be conducted against you.
The Financial Responsibility
In most cases of personal injury, it is not an individual, paying out of their personal savings that will be held financially responsible for providing compensation. It’s usually the insurance company that the person or other party has signed with that will be “in the hot seat” for providing money, should you win your court case. This means that while you and your lawyer will have an interest in investigating the specifics of the accident in order to prove your case, the insurance company of the defense will likely be conducting their own investigation to see whether or not your case actually has merit. Of course, if you also have an insurance company, they may also be very interested in working either independently or in conjunction with your lawyer to solidify the case and ensure that they are not held financially responsible.
So what does this mean if a competing insurance company is investigating?
Fortunately, this being America, the other insurance company is not going to be manufacturing false evidence to try and nullify your case in court. However, there may be attempts to get you to sign documents that invalidate any type of court action, for a smaller amount of money. This is one reason why you should never sign such papers without having an attorney go over the specifics first. There may also be attempts to look into your own background and see whether or not there is anything about you or your past to make your court case questionable.
For example, if you had a history of fraud that you were convicted for, and are now suing for personal injury, that past track record of fraud conviction makes your current case look less legitimate and more like another money-making scheme. Of, if you had a series of pre-existing conditions before you were injured, that could cast doubt on whether the current medical issue is the result of injury, or just the latest manifestation of a condition you already had.
Fortunately, if you get an attorney experienced in personal injury cases, you will be well prepared to handle not just the hurdles of your own team to win the case, but whatever competing investigations may be trying to uncover.