By now just about everyone who has access to a computer has heard of the popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  They offer convenient ways to stay in touch with friends and keep people up to date on what you’re up to at any given moment.  But as entertaining as these sites can be, they can also be detrimental to your medical malpractice claim.

If you utilize social networking websites regularly, it’s important to realize that they are public in nature and consider just who might be reading up on you.

Let’s assume you are bringing a medical malpractice lawsuit against a doctor who you claim harmed you, and part of that lawsuit includes injuries that you claim hinder you from certain activities that you used to perform, such as heavy lifting.  If you update your Facebook profile to indicate how much snow you shoveled over the weekend, it may come back to bite you in the end.

You must be aware that the doctor or medical facility you are suing are going to have a team of experienced defense attorneys who will go to many lengths to ensure their clients are not found guilty.  This often includes doing extensive research on you, the plaintiff, to help disprove any or all of your claims in the case.

Should a clever defense attorney decide to pull you up on one of these social networking sites and discover that something you inadvertently “Twittered” about contradicts your claim of injury or pain and suffering, it will most definitely be revealed in court and can mean the difference between victory and defeat in your case.

This is not to say that anyone should seek compensation for an injury that doesn’t exist, or inflate claims of pain as worse than they really are.  Medical malpractice cases are serious business and expert medical witnesses will review all the details of the claim to determine if, in fact, the claim is legitimate.  It’s just important to remember that what you choose to put on the internet, as innocent or benign as you might think it is, could be misconstrued and used against you.  It may even cost you your case.

If you ever have any question about whether the information you have made public online might hurt your malpractice claim, you should consult with your medical attorney for advice.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Medical Malpractice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.