- Why am I being followed by a surveillance vehicle?

Hi, I’m Warren WhiteKnight, a partner here at Bergeron Clifford Injury Lawyers and today on ‘ask an injury lawyer’ I’m going to talk a little bit about surveillance.

Why am I being followed by a surveillance vehicle why is this happening in an injury claim?

When you’re in an injury lawsuit it’s not a walk in the park, it’s not the most pleasant endeavor. It’s a fight, it’s me and my client the injured person in their family and we’re fighting against an insurance company. The at fault party even if they are clearly at fault, clearly negligent, clearly responsible for what’s happened to my client that doesn’t mean they’re going to treat you fairly that does not mean that they are going to roll over and pay the claim. In fact they’re going to fight tooth and nail and one of the things they do to fight against your claim is they will put you the injured person or your family under surveillance.

The reason they do that – and yes it is allowable under the rules of the court, is to try and catch the injured person doing something inconsistent with what they say they can do. If you say you can’t mow your lawn they’ll try and get a video of you mowing your lawn if they say you have difficulty with your back pain they’ll try and get pictures of you playing basketball or walking your giant Saint Bernard dog. The surveillance evidence is used in court in two ways one is for substantive evidence which is for the truth of its contents to show what it shows the other is for impugning evidence or to contradict someone’s testimony. There’s a lot of law around the two types of evidences and it’s pretty complicated but the the long and short of it is, to use it as substantive evidence it needs to be disclosed in advance. They have to tell us they have the video but to be used to impugn testimony they don’t have to show it to us and they can spring it at trial. So these are two very different uses and of great importance.

The long and short of it is though you’re going to be followed for surveillance and don’t worry about it your job as a client is to be truthful and tell your lawyer how you’re doing and just follow their advice throughout and you will be fine you’ll survive the trials and tribulations again I’m Warren WhiteKnight here on ask an injury lawyer for Bergeron Clifford and we’ll talk to you all next time you.