The importance of preparation and discussing your accident during your deposition testimony in a personal injury case.
In any personal injury case, the most important stage in litigation is taking the sworn testimony of our client and the negligent driver. The key to success during our client’s sworn deposition testimony is preparation.
Whenever we prepare a client for their sworn testimony, we spend an average of 3 to 4 hours to counsel our clients on how to answer deposition questions, how to address questions relating to their past medical history, prior accidents, prior injuries, prior slip and falls or prior work-related injuries.
We also thoroughly prepare them for questions relating to their accident. There are four key subject areas that must be covered by all personal injury claimants when they discuss their accident during their sworn testimony. It is critical that they discuss all of the facts relating to moments before their accident. It is essential that they depict the scene before the impact. They need to list when the accident occurred, where they were coming from and where were they going.
They need to list what vehicle they were operating and where they were traveling at the time of the impact. It is critical that you layout for the attorney any memory of seeing Defendant’s vehicle before the accident. If you saw Defendant’s vehicle before the accident, you must describe to the attorney your innermost thoughts, fears, and anxieties when you noticed that the Defendant wasn’t stopping and was coming towards you and you realized that you were about to get hit.
The next subject that you can talk about is the impact and what happened to you inside the car. You must describe to the attorney if your car was pushed as a result of the impact. You must describe the impact and what it sounded like and describe your innermost thoughts, anxieties and fears when you heard the impact and felt the impact when it occurred.
You have to describe what happened to you in the vehicle when you were jerked forwards and backwards in your car. You must describe if any part of your body impacted any part of the inside of your car. You must describe all of your innermost fears and anxieties when all of this was happening to you.
The third subject that you must discuss relates to all of your immediate injuries, any conversations that you had with Defendant, and any eyewitnesses, and the damage to the vehicles involved. Discuss all of your immediate pain from the top of your head to the bottom. Discuss all of your conversations with Defendant and any eyewitnesses, and describe in detail, all of the damage to all of the vehicles involved.
The fourth and final subject that you must discuss relates to all of the unsafe things that Defendant did. Layout in detail all of the unsafe things that the Defendant did.
