When you file a personal injury lawsuit for the harms and losses you have suffered because of someone else’s carelessness, how does the defense really knows about your injuries, and what you have suffered are in fact significant or permanent?
The Defense is Entitled to Receive all Your Medical Records
Whether it is an accident or a medical malpractice matter, the defense will know what the true extent of your injuries when they evaluate your medical records. Once you open the door towards a personal injury lawsuit, you are obligated to provide the defense with permission slips known as authorizations, which will enable them to pick up copies of your medical records.
The defense will go ahead and accumulate all your records from every doctor and establishment you have received treatment from for your injuries. They will also inquire about how many doctors you have consulted recently, and how many doctors you have seen in the past three years. The defense is entitled to acquire all these records and scrutinize them.
The Defense Carries out a thorough Investigation
The defense will then go through all your medical records, and identify what problems you had, what complaints you made, and what treatment was rendered to you. During the course of the lawsuit, the defense will also have the opportunity to question you at a pretrial question and answer session held under oath, called a deposition.
Once the defense knows what your medical condition is, they will ask you what you can and cannot do. However, this is not all. In many cases defense will have the victim examined by a doctor of their choosing, for evaluating the victim’s medical condition. They call it an “independent” medical examination. However, there is nothing independent about this exam, since it is a doctor that they hire specifically for disputing your claim about the extent of your injuries.
Additionally, when you have claimed that you cannot do certain activities because of your injuries, the defense will hire a private investigator to trail you and try to catch you on video doing all the activities that you have claimed you were unable to do. The gist of it is that the defense does not accept at face value whatever you claim. The defense will do everything possible to try to undermine your claims, turn you into a liar and a deceitful person, and the paint the fact that you are just looking for some golden eggs.
How does the Defense really Know about Your Injuries?
Therefore, it is not so much about, how does the defense really know about your injuries, but rather how they can disprove your claims. The main objective of the defense will be to show the jury that you have either not been injured or that your injuries are minor and not as significant as you claim them to be.
