Blogs

Are You A Fraud?

A potential client came into our office recently. He had told us over the phone about a very serious crash - a truck had hit him at a high rate of speed, crossed over many lanes of traffic and had finally come to rest against a barrier on the other side of the roadway. He described being at the hospital and undergoing many radiographic scans to determine his multiple injuries. As always, we asked him to bring photographs of his car (and his injuries if he had them), the police accident report, insurance information and whatever medical bills and records he had. He arrived in our office with pictures of his car that showed scant damage to a part of his car that did not in any way match his story.

It took about ten seconds and two questions for us to conclude that he was lying. Our question to him ("Do you really want to submit this claim to an insurance company?") resulted in his picking up his pictures and notes and leaving the office.

Lying -- to your lawyer, the insurance company, the doctor, the judge -- is the kiss of death to a personal injury claim. Exaggerating injuries and events is included in lying. It does no good. You will be found out. We work hard to get at the truth of every case we handle and we do not hesitate to fire clients when we find out they have lied to us.

Lawyers know how to deal with the truth, but we refuse to be on the side of people who do not tell us or their doctor or their insurance company the truth. If you have a legitimate case that is worth pursuing, there is no reason to lie about what happened or your injuries. No case is perfect. Let your lawyer have the truth so he or she can to make the best of the real facts.