Documents are important to support your personal injury action.

Why?

Because it is through documentation that you prove your case.

Documents are the way you present your case to the judge and jury. They tell the story of your accident, injuries, and damages.

The documentation you have of your personal injury case is the evidence that your Florida personal injury legal team uses to prove the extent of your injuries and get you the compensation you deserve.

Documents support the strengths of your case and expose the weaknesses of your case. They provide the information your lawyer will rely on to draft your court documents, present your monetary demands, and negotiate your case with the other side.

It does not matter how you were injured—whether it was a car accident, motorcycle accident, or a slip and fall. To successfully establish the facts of your case and receive the compensation you deserve, you will need to present a variety of documents to the judge and jury.

There are many different types of documents that can help you do this. Below we will discuss only 3 types of documents you need to support your personal injury action.

3 Types of Documents You Need to Support Your Personal Injury Action

1. Medical Records and Medical Bills

Any personal injury case involves some type of physical injury that was caused by the negligence of another. So it is not surprising that the first type of documents you will need to establish a successful personal injury action are medical records.

These are the documents that detail the severity of your injuries and whatever treatment(s) you underwent to recover from those injuries.

Your medical records are central to your case and to its success. It is your medical records that connect the accident to your medical expenses and to the person who caused them.

There are different types of medical records. Some of the ones you will want to make sure to obtain include:

• Hospital charts
• Notes made by your doctor or nurses during visits
• Results of examinations and tests
• Physical therapy notes
• Prescriptions
• Doctor’s orders and referrals to physical therapy or rehabilitation facilities

Of course, you need to request your medical records from all treating physicians, but you will want to gather all of these to support your case.

In addition, make sure to keep any financial information related to your injuries and treatment. All medical bills and estimates of costs for future treatments will be necessary for  your case.

2. Photographs and/or Videos

Proving the facts of your case is far easier if you have photographs to present to the judge and jury. For example, photographs of your injuries help to establish the seriousness of your injuries and the need for medical expenses. Likewise, photographs of the scene of the accident can help prove exactly who was at fault or more at fault for the accident.

You may want to have photographs of your initial injuries and your condition over time. Again, this can help to establish your damages and justify the need for physical therapy or other medical treatments. Keep the digital copies safe and print out hard copies of the photographs for your file. Be sure indicate the date the photo was taken, who took it, and what the photograph depicts.

A word of caution here. Make sure that you do not do anything—even if you are only trying to improve the clarity of the photograph—that changes or alters the photograph in any way. If you do, you are likely to be opening yourself up to arguments by defense counsel that you are altering the evidence. It is critical that any photographs you use for your personal injury case are true representations of the matters being represented.

3. Incident Reports

The third type of document that you need to support your personal injury case is any type of official report connected to the events.

For example, this could be a police report if you were in a car accident. If your personal injury is connected to a workers’ compensation claim, then it might be the indent report filed with your employer. In a slip and fall case, this would be the indent report filed with the store or other location where the fall occurred.

Keep in mind that these incident reports may be reports made by others regarding your accident (e.g., the police, a business employee, etc.), so you may have to ask for copies. However, getting these reports can go a long way towards documenting your personal injury case.

The 3 types of documents listed above are only some of the documents you will need to support your case. When you work with an experienced personal injury attorney, he and his team can advise you on how to get all the documents you will need to support your case.

 

Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

John Fagan and his legal team are dedicated to helping those who have been injured due to the negligence of another, or disabled. Contact us here or simply call our firm at: 777-JOHN. We serve clients throughout Florida. Our main office is in Orange Park, but we have consulting offices in Palatka, Middleburg, Keystone, Starke, Gainesville, and Ocala.