As an accident and injury lawyer practicing in Ft. Worth, I tell my clients that they need to watch out for what they do on their social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.  While these sites are great, they can prove to be disastrous to your personal injury claim. The communications that people put on these social media sites are usually happy communications.  People talk about the things they do, sporting events they go to, trips they go on and the such. Oftentimes, people post pictures of these fun events.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The reason you have to be careful if you are pursuing an injury claim is that if you’re injured and you are telling the insurance company for the party responsible for your accident that you can’t do certain things---but you post something on your Facebook wall that might potentially contradict what you’re telling the insurance company, this poses huge credibility issues. For example, if you have an back injury, but your wall post mentions that you went out dancing, then the insurance company adjuster (when they find out about the wall post) will assume that you are not as hurt as your say you are.

If the insurance company does not believe you, the offer on your case is going to be diminished. Of a jury who hears your case is not going to believe you. Either way, the value of your case is going to go down. 

But will the insurance company know about the tweet or wall post? They very well might and you have to assume that they will see it. When they know that there is a possibility of learning incriminating information, they will try to figure out a way to be your “friend” or subscribe to your twitter feed. You have to assume that they are watching you!

So, if you’re involved in an accident and have decided to pursue an injury claim, you need to watch out for what you post on Facebook and Twitter and the other social media sites, because these communications can very much come back to haunt you later on.