(Newswire.net — July 6, 2017) — Gathering evidence of the negligence of the other party, which led to your injury, is an important aspect of a personal injury claim. Without concrete evidence, there’s no way you’ll get compensated for your injuries.
Although you might still be nursing the injury sustained, it’s advisable you by all means find a way to gather all evidence available, and this should be done during the first few days following the accident. Any time later than that, your evidence could get tainted – by people, the weather, etc., or even get lost or destroyed.
To increase your claim’s chance of success, you need to prove that it was the omission or fault of the opposite party that caused the injury sustained. If not, all your trouble would go to waste and you’ll have no claim.
Here are a few tips on gathering evidence for your personal injury claim:
1. Gather all evidence at the injury scene
Your best shot at gathering evidence is at the injury scene. Take photos of the accident scene which should include any personal injuries you sustained and damages done to your property.
Be sure the photos are clearly showing things like abrasions on your body, damages on the cloth you wore and the actual surroundings of the accident. You can even make a video recording of the scene.
Also, you can gather relevant information from pedestrians, witnesses or even fellow victims, if there are any. Obtain their phone numbers and names. If the accident occurred at work, obtain the names of the co-workers that were present when it happened. The more evidence you obtain on your personal injury, the better chance you stand at convincing the court.
2. Keep all medical reports
Another way to gather evidence for your personal injury claim is to keep safely all medical reports relating to the injury you sustained.
This should include all tests carried out, medical reports, charts from the emergency room, etc.
All copies of the treatment plan given to you by the doctor should be safely kept.
3. Consult an attorney
It is best you speak to a personal injury lawyer if gathering the evidence gets confusing. With the help of the attorney, you’ll be able to gather precisely what is needed and even much more.
More so, you’ll be told what to do and what not to. Also, in the case of a serious injury, the party at fault might want to destroy any crucial evidence that can be used against them. This is where your attorney comes in.
It’s bad enough that you’ve been injured. It would be even worse if you spoil your own case by handling the injury case yourself, especially without an attorney’s guidance.
4. Organise all evidence obtained
As you start to gather all the evidence relating to the personal injury sustained, it will begin to pile up and at a point get disorganised; you may start losing files and documents. So it’s important you get it all organised into groups.
Group the evidence into separate folders, one for the police report, another for the statements from the witnesses, etc.
Keeping everything organised will help you and your attorney put things together with ease.
Gathering evidence for a personal injury case isn’t as difficult as it might seem. With the tips above you’ll have solid, impenetrable evidence in no time.