Hello, my name is Robert Geller I am an attorney in the Tampa Bay area and our law firm handles personal injury cases, wrongful death cases, automobile accident cases, and other injury-type cases. Today I want to discuss with you what you can do to make your accident, auto accident case, automobile case, or any other case stronger. So, the first thing that you need to do if you're involved in an accident like an automobile accident is you need to make sure you get as much evidence as you can from the scene. What I mean by that is you should get the names and addresses of the witnesses or anybody else at the scene.
You should:
- get photographs of the vehicles
- get photographs of where the vehicles end up on the roadway
- get a video if you can get it
- do everything you can to accumulate the evidence and documentation of the scene
The next thing that you want to do is you want to make sure you call the police so you have somebody confirming what happened at the accident scene. Of course one of the most important things to do in an accident or automobile accident is to make sure you wear your seatbelt before you get into it. That's because if you are not wearing your seatbelt you can be considered comparatively negligent by the opposing side or the side that caused your accident. They can use the fact that you didn't wear your seatbelt against you in that case. So, of course in any automobile accident case, and you know this goes almost without saying, please please please wear your seatbelts. Seatbelts really will save your life.
The next thing that you should do if you're involved in an automobile accident case or any other kind of case is you should get medical treatment. This is really important. You need to document your injuries because if you don't document your injuries, the other side again will suggest that you weren't injured in the accident or you didn't seek immediate medical treatment and so your injuries really aren't related to the accident or you really weren't that hurt. So it really is important that you get immediate medical treatment. In fact, in an automobile accident case under Florida law, you need to get medical treatment within 14 days of the accident or potentially you could lose very valuable insurance coverage. So, yes, get media and medical treatment.
The next thing related to medical treatment is continue with your medical treatment if you're involved in an accident in any kind of accident and you're claiming that you're injured and you're claiming you're suffering. It's important that you continue with your medical treatment and that you follow what the doctor tells you to do and that you do everything you're supposed to do to make your situation or your medical situation better. If you don't do that, again, that can be used against you by
the opposing side, so it's always good to follow what the doctor tells you to. Continue on with your medical treatment. That's really important.
One of the things that happens when most people are involved in an automobile accident is that the other drivers insurance company and an automobile accident will try and gain a statement from you. They'll ask you how are you feeling, how you doing, and they want to try and take a statement from you. You know it's our tendency to always kind of say we're doing a
little better than we are or many people would do that so you may tell that to the insurance company. So, what am I telling you? Never ever ever talk to the opposing insurance company because if you tell them that you're doing fine,
you know you may mean well, but they're gonna use that some later date. So don't talk to the opposing insurance company, never give a statement recorded, state written, state that leaves that information up to you should give that information to your attorney. Under some circumstances you have to give an information or a statement to your own insurance company, but never give the opposing side a statement. One of the things that I found from my experience, and I've been handling personal injury
cases for over 30 years, is what makes a case really successful is that you keep a diary. What I mean by a diary is how you're feeling. You want to explain initially in an automobile accident you may feel really terrible and things may get worse and worse over the week or two weeks or three weeks or four weeks.
So you want to record that just on a calendar, on a notepad or something, and you may get better but things may stay the same in the next month. They may stay the same next month so you don't have to keep it every day but at least initially keep that diary but keep it up. The reason this is really important. Sometimes accident cases can take six months, sometimes they can take a year, sometimes they can take two years, sometimes they could take four or five years.
If you ever have to file a lawsuit in your case you're gonna be asked by the insurance company's attorney how you're dealing or how this accident has affected you. Many times people kind of forget about how difficult it was being injured and suffering. If you keep this diary, you can pull it out and you can read it and I assure you that if you have that diary and you hand it to the other insurer the other party's attorney are you handed to their insurance company they're gonna understand what you went through. Nobody will ever be able to discount that or use that against you so a diary I think is really important.
I've had clients who have kept a diary and I encourage every one of my clients to do it. I've had clients who've kept that diary and, trust me when I tell you, that makes a huge difference in their recovery because really nobody can really argue with that and that's in my opinion. One of the best ways of documenting pain and suffering and what somebody's had to go through an automobile accident, so please keep that diary. If you've ever been involved in an automobile accident, you've been involved in any other accident or wrongful death, you lost a family member, or any type of accident, I would hope that you'd contact our law firm. We will show you the right way to protect your rights and how you can make your case stronger. My name is Robert Geller. Thank you.
