Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Chase Ellaby and Joel Williams from Williams-Ellaby, and today we're going to talk to you about the essential evidence you need to prove your injury case. So Joel, I kind of break these into two separate categories, obviously the liability portion and the damages portion. So let's talk about the liability portion first. What sort of evidence is essential to prove liability?

Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of it, depending on your situation and what kind of incident caused your injuries, but we'll just kind of go through a list of things that come to mind that you need to prove, or the evidence that you would need to prove liability. And I would say the first thing is an incident report, and that could be a motor vehicle accident report filled out by a police officer, it could be an incident report from a slip and fall, anything like that that documents the scene close in time to when it happened is a good starting point for getting basic information.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think incident reports are vital. You know, like you said, with police reports and things like that and car wrecks, it's almost automatic. It's not always automatic when you say fall on a premises or something like that, but to go along with the incident report, if you can, take photos, right? Or if someone takes photos, get those photographs of the scene, whether it's property damage from a car wreck, whether it's a slip and fall, whether it's a defective product, whatever it might be. Anything that you can snap a photo of is very important as well.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And another thing going back to, this is kind of bleeds over between the police report or the incident report and photos, if police officers do come to the scene, or if 9-1-1 is called, you want to go ahead and get a copy of the 9-1-1 call or tape that's available through, in most states, through open records requests. And nowadays, a lot of times the police officer that comes will have a body cam on them, and sometimes if it's a car wreck, the dash cam in the police officer's vehicle will catch vital actions and words that are said by people at the scene. So those are very important things to get when you're trying to prove liability.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think too, speaking of incident reports, I think of documents, but like in a Medmont case for instance, you will need the medical records for an expert to review or to do an expert report to prove liability there. So getting medical records and things like that in that context is very important to prove liability.

Speaker 2: Yeah. That's always where you're going to start in a Medmont case. Also when liability is disputed, because, I mean, let's be honest, sometimes we have cases where the person who caused it just admits that they caused it, and the issues that we have that are in dispute are different in those cases. But in disputed liability cases where you actually have to prove liability, independent witness statements are vital. There's a reason that anytime your name shows up in an accident report, you're getting a call from an insurance company, probably within 24 or 48 hours, it's because the insurance companies know how important witness statements are, but they are just as, if not more important to the person who's bringing the claim for injuries.

Speaker 1: Right. Another sort of way to prove liability in a certain type of cases, like a negligent security case for instance, we handle negligent security cases, and that's when someone's injured or shot or robbed or raped on someone else's property. In order to prove liability for those types of cases, you have to prove prior knowledge. You have to prove that the apartment complex, gas station, wherever it might be, knew or should have known that the property was dangerous. So in order to do that, or one way to do that, is to do an open records request for prior criminal incident reports that took place on that property. So that's another way to gather, I guess, evidence for liability is open records requests through government agencies.

Speaker 2: Yeah, to find out what happened before, and sometimes if there's an extensive criminal history on the property, getting every single incident report can be expensive. So in some jurisdictions, you'll be able to order what you call a crime grid, that's basically an overview of everything that's happened, and then you can look at the crime grid and then narrow down similar incidents to get the actual reports and things that are similar to what happened to you. Another thing that's really important to keep, and you mentioned products liability cases earlier, is the product. It is absolutely essential in a product liability case to have the object itself that you're claiming is defective. Lots of times we've gotten calls from people in products liability cases where they were hurt by a product, but they threw the product away, and then the product can't be tested to see whether it was a design defect, or a manufacturing defect, or any and all of that. But you do have to keep that product any time you are trying or contemplating bringing a products liability case.

Speaker 1: Right. I mean, that's absolutely vital, like you said. So we've kind of talked about liability and what you need to prove liability. The next portion is going to be damages, right? So damages-

Speaker 2: Oh, one other thing on liability, communications. So if you get letters, emails, text messages, voicemails, any of that stuff from the people that are involved in the scene or involved in the incident itself, or even from the insurance company, then you want to hold onto those because there may be important information in there that you might need later on down the road. You may not need it, but it's important to keep it just in case, at least until your case is closed.

Speaker 1: All right. Absolutely. And kind of on the communications front too, a lot of times when you have to get into litigation, you don't get communications from the other side. You have to send open record or send a request for production of documents to get the other side to give you those internal emails or communications and things like that that may go to support liability in whatever case you may have. All right. So let's talk about damages. So what are the sort of things that you need to prove damages?

Speaker 2: Yeah. So not only do you have to prove that this incident was not your fault or somebody else's fault, you have to prove what your damages are. We usually start in personal injury cases with medical records and bills because those are the documentation to show what parts of your body were hurt, how much it costs to try to fix it, to fix your body. And you just have to keep up with those because that's kind of the ABCs and 123s of what the

Speaker 1: injury is. Right. Exactly. And kind of embedded in most of those medical records are going to be CT scans, MRIs, things like that to show what the injury may be. Those are images, but other images would be photos, right? Photos of your injuries. If you've got bruises, cuts, scrapes, scars, whatever it might be, you want to take photographs of those injuries, especially as the injuries start to heal. So you can kind of keep track of the progression of those injuries. So that's always important. Those are sort of the main things when it comes to proving your injuries. Another thing kind of staying on the injury front that you could do to prove damages or things like independent medical examinations or sending a patient to get what's called a permanent impairment rating. Right. Because if you have a shoulder surgery and the surgery went well and things like that, you're going to have a permanent injury. It's just determining by a medical professional what or how much or how permanent that injury actually is. So that's another way to sort of prove your damages in the future or whatever that injury may be.

Speaker 2: Yeah. It assigns a number to something that you're going to move forward into the future suffering from whether it's a 2% or a 40% permanent partial disability rating. That number helps the insurance company and your lawyers and a jury, if necessary, try to quantify pain and suffering and disability. But speaking of medical records before we get too far off from it, a lot of times you may re-injure a part of your body that was injured before, or you may have some underlying condition that's made worse because of the wreck. If that's the case, then you're going to want to get your prior medical records, and this isn't something you're necessarily going to send to the insurance company prior to filing a lawsuit, but you want to know what they say. Because if you do enter into formal litigation or file a lawsuit, then the other side is going to be entitled to request those records, and they're going to know what's in there. So it's always better to know ahead of time what's in your prior records if there is some kind of a pre-existing issue or a condition that was aggravated by whatever incident hurt

Speaker 1: you. Right. Sorry. So another thing, so we've got the medical damages, which are bills, records, and things like that. Another item of damages that a lot of people seek in these types of cases are lost wages. So a way to prove that, if you're just a W-2 employee, you get a set salary, you get pay stubs. You get the W-2. You can get tax forms and things like that. You can also get 1099s if you're a contractor. If you're a business owner, it's a little more difficult, but you can look at past performance of the business and kind of show what's been dropped off based on your injury, not being able to work. Another way you can prove that is to hire an economist, right? You can get an economist that'll look at all this information, look at all this data, and then, I guess, present a professional opinion as to what your lost earning is or what your lost wages are from the injury.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's especially important for future lost wage cases because there's a lot ... The laws vary from state to state on this, but when you're dealing with future lost wages, sometimes you have to factor in a reduction value and all these other kinds of things. So you can consider, okay, I'm getting X amount of dollars today for what I should have gotten five years from now, but what's the value of the dollars that I would have gotten five years ago today because of inflation and all that stuff and the corpse. I would prefer that you have an expert economist to testify to those things, but speaking of experts, when it comes to damages, your medical professionals, your doctors, your chiropractor, your sometimes nurses or physical therapists come into play when we're talking about damages because your doctor is going to be able to say how bad the injury is. He or she may be able to talk about permanent partial disability, whether it's going to be permanent, whether it's not going to be permanent. All of those kind of things play a major factor into determining value of the case and they are essential, at least ... They may not be essential prior to filing a lawsuit, but once a lawsuit has been filed, the testimony of doctors and medical professionals are absolutely

Speaker 1: essential to proving damages. Right. Yeah, and that's different from the medical records, right? You can get the medical records. I'd say in a small percentage of cases where it's real cut and dry, say it's a fractured arm that heals and things like that, the medical records are probably going to tell you everything you need to know, but in other cases, we talked about pre-existing conditions and things like that, in other cases, you're going to need that doctor's testimony to come in and say, well, yeah, so-and-so may have had this prior to the wreck, but it's my professional medical opinion that because of this wreck, either the condition was caused by the wreck or that the condition was exacerbated by the wreck and that it necessitated the treatment and things that followed from the wreck.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And the doctors can also kind of tell the story that's not written into the medical

Speaker 1: records. Exactly, right?

Speaker 2: They add the context. Exactly. They're the ones that meet you. They're the ones that evaluate you. They're the ones that put their hands on you and do the physical tests and examinations and all that kind of stuff. And especially in today's world, medical records are all electronic, so there's a lot of cut and paste going on and that kind of stuff. The doctor can tell the story that's between the lines. Another type of witness is important for proving damages. And we're talking about witnesses, but witness testimony is actually evidence in a case, right? It's not just documents and things. The testimony is evidence as well. But when you're proving damages, friends and family and coworkers and people you go to church with, people you play recreational sports with or socialize with are usually in the best position to talk about your physical condition prior to the incident and after the incident. So they can bring home, even if it's a written statement, maybe that's helpful for pre-suit negotiations, if they need to testify when a lawsuit's been filed, that's very helpful too because it's somebody other than you saying how bad it is. They can give that outside perspective on, okay, well Chase was like, he used to play golf and softball and he used to run and go to the gym and all this stuff prior to the wreck. After the wreck, he's tried, he can't do it anymore or either you can tell he's in pain when he's doing it or maybe he can play golf, but he can't go to the gym or something like that.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And those are the before and after, what we call before and after witnesses and they're important because those witnesses are used to help the jury quantify really what the pain and suffering award is going to be, right? It's pain and suffering, especially in Georgia and it's probably the same in most states, but the pain and suffering that you get awarded in a trial is whatever the enlightened conscience of a jury decides it to be. So in order to prove that, you have to show examples of how you were before, how you were after, how this wreck impacted you and those are really essential witnesses to have and prove what your suffering is.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And hopefully the point of those witnesses is to help the jury empathize with what you've been through because they are the type of witnesses that can give real world examples of how this injury has affected your life and that directly affects what the jury may award to you for pain and suffering damages. So anything else that you can think of?

Speaker 1: No, I mean, I think we did a good job in the highlights of, you know, what are the evidence to prove liability and also to prove damages. So I think that's kind of gives you a 30,000 foot view of what's and what we see probably in most cases are everything we've discussed.

Speaker 2: So yeah. And, and like Chase said, this is the 30,000 foot view of it, but to actually go out and get this essential evidence to prove liability and damages takes time and it takes work, which is another reason that it's important if you have a claim, unless you just have all the time in the world in your hands to hire an attorney and to find an attorney that's actually got the bandwidth and the time to spend on your case and not one that's got 10,000 other cases, because if you've got 10,000 cases, you cannot go out and find all of this stuff for each one of your cases. It's just impossible. You're only, you can only do so much as one person, right? So make sure that when you're looking for an attorney, if you are looking for an attorney, that you find one who has a manageable caseload and you can ask the attorney, how many cases are you handling at what time, but make sure you find somebody that has a manageable caseload so they can go out and help you get all of these essential things that you'll need to prove liability and damages of the case. But we hope that this video has been helpful to you. So give us a thumbs up, thumbs up, got two thumbs, two thumbs up, hit that subscribe button. Otherwise we will see you next week. Bye-bye. Bye.