According to personal injury law, anyone that has been injured in an accident has the right to seek compensation from the person that caused that same accidental occurrence. Suppose, though, that the responsible individual has refused to admit to the charge of liability. What should the injured victim do?
Who might fight a liability charge?
• The insurance adjuster at the defendant’s insurance company
• An attorney representing the defendant, or representing the defendant’s insurance company
• The person that has been named as the at-fault party
The injured victim should seek verification of any outright denial.
If reference has been made to a law or regulation that manages to support the denial, then the victim should seek documented proof of the law or regulation’s existence. That documented proof should feature some official marking. In addition, it should include specific, as opposed to general information.
As a backup to the above request, an injured victim might spend time studying the police or accident report. That effort ought to focus on a comparison of the story in the report and the victim’s story. Do the two of them agree, or does the report contradict the victim’s story?
Now, it could be that the police or accident report contained a story that was, to at least some degree, different from the one provided by the victim/claimant. Personal Injury Lawyer in Cambridge understand that such a finding would not necessarily count as proof that the other party was not liable for the reported injury.
During the investigation of a police report, a few other questions should be on the minds of the investigative team. Was the victim issued a ticket? Did the reporting officer mention who was at-fault? Of what value is this report, when it cannot be used as evidence, in the event of a trial?
Why can police report not get used as evidence during a trial?
The police arrived on scene following the accident’s occurrence. For that reason, their report has no first-hand information about what took place during the event that caused the claimant’s injury. In other words, the information reported by the officers is hearsay.
A victim should keep that fact in mind. It helps to obtain the contact information from witnesses. Their statements would not repeat, or should not repeat what someone else has said. Of course, some witnesses prove more reliable than others.
A witness that was standing by the side of the road, or one that was in a vehicle that was not involved in the accident would be more reliable. In contrast, someone that had been a passenger in the other party’s vehicle might offer a statement of questionable veracity. That fact showcases why verifiable witness statements can prove so valuable.
