Best Ways to Gather Evidence for a Personal Injury Claim in Indiana

If you’ve been injured because of another party’s negligence or intentionally wrongful act, you may have grounds to file a personal injury claim in Indiana. In order to do so, you and your attorney must collect evidence to support your compensation claim.

There are several ways to gather evidence for a personal injury claim in Indiana. Immediately following an incident, victims should report it to the necessary parties, including law enforcement, take photos, and gather the names and contact info of any witnesses. Once you have contacted our lawyers, we can interview witnesses and preserve and review any available security camera footage. Our lawyers will likely advise victims to seek continuous medical care to make sure they receive the health care needed and their injuries are well-documented. At the end of the day, victims can preserve and gather evidence best when they have a skilled attorney overseeing the investigation.

Call us today for a free case evaluation with the Indiana personal injury attorneys at Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.

What Are the Best Ways to Gather Evidence for a Personal Injury Claim in Indiana?

In a personal injury claim against a negligent party in Indiana, gathering evidence is crucial. While there are steps you can take in the immediate aftermath of an incident to collect evidence, our attorneys can be invaluable in your efforts to preserve and compile evidence necessary to support your claim against a negligent party. For instance, victims should always report an incident and take photos of the scene if possible. Our attorneys may then interview witnesses, work with law enforcement, review security camera footage, and make sure all other evidence is preserved that might support your claim. Finally, seeking continuous medical care after an incident can allow our attorneys to use your medical records as evidence of injury in your claim.

Report an Incident

Regardless of the details of your personal injury claim, victims should always report an incident to the necessary parties. For example, suppose you were injured in a car accident caused by a negligent driver. In that case, it is wise and often legally required to alert law enforcement officials to the scene to complete a crash report. These documents can be complicated, so it benefits you to enlist help from our experienced lawyers to review a crash report.

Or perhaps an injury occurred on someone else’s property or business. In that case, victims should report it to property owners or their employees. Inform management and owners if you were injured while patronizing a business or restaurant. Reporting an incident is crucial so that our attorneys can show that you took the necessary steps after you sustained your injuries and to trigger the property owner's legal duty to preserve evidence, such as security footage.

Take Photos of the Scene

If you are capable, take photos of the area after an incident. Snapping photographs with your smartphone can help our lawyers make sense of the scene. For example, suppose you were patronizing a store and slipped on a wet floor that had no sign indicating so. Photos of the scene can show that a business’s negligence contributed to your injuries because it did not inform you of potential danger.

Also, take photos of any visible injuries you have suffered. These photos can dramatically illustrate your injuries, which can be important when seeking legal recovery.

Interview Witnesses

Once you have hired our attorneys to represent your interests in a claim against a negligent party, they can begin to gather evidence on your behalf. This may entail interviewing witnesses to the incident. Our lawyers can speak with eyewitnesses who can corroborate your claims against a responsible party. Depending on the nature of the incident and where it occurred, that may mean speaking with your fellow employees or other store patrons. Interviewing witnesses should be reserved for our experienced Indianapolis personal injury lawyers and is not something victims should do independently.

Review Security Camera Footage

Our lawyers can uncover additional forms of evidence victims may not have considered themselves. For example, there may be security camera footage depending on where an incident occurred. When you inform our lawyers of an incident’s location, they can request access to security camera footage that may have filmed an incident. If such footage exists, our skilled attorneys can use it to support your compensation claim against a negligent party.

Some areas that appear private and without cameras may not be. For example, suppose a neighbor’s negligence caused your injuries. While it may seem as though there is no available footage of the incident to a victim, our lawyers may be able to cover footage from private security cameras. Our skilled professionals can think outside the box to uncover helpful evidence and send the appropriate letters to preserve the evidence to support your claim against a negligent party.

Preserve Electronic Information

In many cases, an electronic trail of information may be very important but may be lost or erased if you do not have a lawyer to act quickly to preserve it.

For example, many consumer vehicles have onboard vehicle data recorders, which have information that is often critical in an auto accident case. While many people are aware of the “black box” used to determine the cause of airline crashes, many people are surprised that most passenger cars produced in the last 15 years have similar equipment that can identify the cause of a crash.

Similarly, many commercial vehicles often have additional equipment. For example, semi trucks frequently have dashboard cameras as well as other onboard electronic devices, which will show exactly how an accident occurred.

Unfortunately, all of this data is likely to disappear if you don’t act immediately to preserve it and bring in appropriate experts to retrieve it. Onboard vehicle recording data is often overwritten if the vehicle is driven again after the accident. Therefore, the evidence must be preserved and retrieved before this happens.

These systems are all technical and require a qualified technician with proper equipment to download the data. You will not be able to retrieve it yourself. However, we keep these experts on-call for immediate action and are able to demand access to this data as soon as we are contacted after an accident.

Seek Ongoing Medical Care

If you hire our team to represent your interests, they will undoubtedly advise you to seek appropriate medical care. While you may have visited a doctor immediately after an incident, continuing to do so is crucial if it is medically necessary. This not only ensures you get the care you require but also that there is adequate medical documentation of your injuries. A doctor can speak to the likely cause and corroborate the severity of your injuries. Using this evidence, our Hammond, IN personal injury lawyers can fight for appropriate compensatory damages that reflect the true cost of your injuries.

In many cases, we are contacted by people who have suffered significant injuries but have not received proper medical attention, so there is no documentation to support these claims. This makes it much more difficult to recover, although we can attempt to prove your injuries in other ways.

Often, people do not seek medical treatment because they do not have insurance or the money to pay doctors out of pocket. There are a number of ways you may still be able to get the medical treatment you need, however, and we work with accident victims to help them get the medical treatment necessary, even if they don’t have the money to pay doctors immediately. Contact us, and we can review several options to assist you in getting the medical care you need as part of your personal injury claim.

Gathering Evidence to Support Your Indiana Personal Injury Claim if You Are Severely Injured

Oftentimes, victims are too injured to do the heavy lifting regarding evidence collection. Because of that, it is important for victims to consult with our attorneys immediately after an accident so that we can begin investigating a case right away.

Depending on your injuries, you might be too injured to speak to anyone after an accident in Indiana, let alone eyewitnesses. Suppose you are unable to get the names and contact information of those who witnessed your accident take place. In that case, our attorneys can uncover their identities in the days following an accident. We can do this by referring to the information found in the police report for your incident or by reviewing security camera footage.

Similarly, victims might be too injured to photograph the accident scene. Depending on the circumstances of your accident, eyewitnesses and police officers might have taken photos themselves. We can request such images from eyewitnesses and law enforcement officers in the days after your accident.

When your injuries are severe, your main focus should be getting the medical attention you need. In doing this, you will be actually building medical evidence we can use to support your case.

How to Gather Witness Statements for a Personal Injury Claim in Indiana

Various witness statements can be used as evidence in a personal injury claim, increasing a victim’s chances of recovery. These include statements from eyewitnesses, experts, and others.

As mentioned, our lawyers can interview witnesses in the days and weeks following an incident to get their statements. Eyewitness statements can be corroborated by security camera footage that plainly shows an at-fault party acting negligently.

Furthermore, we can source statements from experts, such as medical experts, that provide additional insight and information that may ultimately support your case.

Statements from friends and family can also be useful, especially regarding your recovery of non-economic damages. Statements from therapists can also help in this effort, as mental health professionals can attest to the emotional difficulties you have experienced following an accident in Indiana.

How to Gather Proof of Damages for a Personal Injury Claim in Indiana

In addition to gathering proof of a negligent party’s fault, you must also gather proof of your damages. This will aid in the calculation of compensatory damages in your claim.

To ensure you have sufficient proof of damages, our attorneys will advise you to keep all records related to your financial losses. This will include any invoices or bills related to medical treatment and records of your lost wages. If you incurred any additional out-of-pocket expenses related to your accident, such as expenses for travel or in-house care, keep records of those costs as well.

Our attorneys can use your proof of damages to carefully calculate the financial compensation you deserve. If you require long-term medical care for your injuries, statements from medical experts can explain as much, allowing you to recover compensation for future medical damages.

Proof of non-economic damages can be harder to come by, which is why our lawyers may advise you to seek care from a mental health professional following an accident. Similarly, you can keep a journal, documenting your pain and suffering in the aftermath of an incident that caused you injury in Indiana. There is nothing to show how much compensation you deserve without proof of damages, so keeping careful records of all your losses is crucial.

Importance of Gathering Evidence for a Personal Injury Claim in Indiana

Evidence is necessary to meet the burden of proof against a negligent party and hold them accountable for your injuries. Without evidence, recovering compensation becomes increasingly difficult.

In personal injury claims, the burden is on the victim to prove that it is more likely than not that another party caused their injuries. While the burden of proof is lower than victims might anticipate, it is still difficult to meet. And, because a negligent party will attempt to submit evidence of their lack of responsibility for your damages, it is crucial to build a strong case that plainly shows they caused your injuries.

This is why gathering evidence is so important. Generally, starting this process as soon as possible following an accident that causes you injury in Indiana is best. In addition to adhering to the filing deadline, which is two years, waiting to gather evidence might hurt your case. Certain evidence, such as eyewitness statements, might become less useful over time as witnesses’ memories degrade. Security camera footage might be deleted, and photographs might be erased. Being proactive on this front is crucial so that you are ultimately able to gather evidence that results in a strong and successful compensation claim in Indiana.