The Importance of Documenting Your Injuries for a Lawsuit

If you have a mass tort lawsuit, proving your injuries (and their costs) will be essential for recovering the financial compensation you deserve. As a result, documenting your injuries is extremely important, and while your lawyer will be able to help, there are some steps you will need to take on your own as well.

Why You Need to Document Your Injuries if You Think You May Have a Lawsuit

Before we talk about the steps you need to take, we’ll first discuss why documenting your injuries is important. There are three main reasons:

1. Proving the Cause of Your Injuries

First, documenting your injuries will help prove their cause—and this is essential for filing a mass tort lawsuit. To seek just compensation, you need to be able to prove how and why you got injured. If you can prove the cause of your injury, this will allow you (or your lawyer) to prove what company is responsible.

2. Proving the Costs of Your Injuries

Second, documenting your injuries will also assist with proving how much you are entitled to recover. If you can prove your injuries, then you can also prove your injuries’ costs. This includes not only the costs of diagnosis and treatment but the cost of your prescription medications, your lost income and benefits, and other costs as well.

3. Proving Your Injuries’ Non-Financial Impacts

Third, documenting your injuries will allow you to prove their non-financial impacts. Serious injuries can negatively impact virtually all aspects of your daily life. If you have a mass tort claim, you are entitled to just compensation for these “non-financial costs” as well. But, here too, it is up to you to prove how much financial compensation you deserve.

How to Document Your Injuries (and Their Costs)

So, now that you know why it is important to document your injuries if you think you may have a mass tort lawsuit, how do you document your injuries (and their costs)? Here are some tips from the mass tort lawyers at Searcy Denney:

• Seek Medical Treatment Promptly – If you have not done so already, you should seek medical treatment for your injuries right away. When seeking treatment, tell your doctor specifically why you have concerns. This will help ensure that you receive a complete and accurate diagnosis—and this, in turn, will help ensure that you have the documentation you need to prove your legal rights.
• Keep Your Test Results, Scans, Prescriptions and Other Medical Records – While your medical providers should keep all of your medical records on file, you should do your best to keep copies as well. This way, you can share them with your lawyer during your free initial consultation. Test results, scans, prescriptions and any other medical records you receive could all be relevant to your claim for just compensation.
• Keep Your Medical Bills and Receipts – Along with your medical records, you should also keep your medical bills and receipts. Likewise, if you pay for any prescriptions or medical supplies out of pocket, you should be sure to keep track of these costs as well. Whether you cover these costs in the short term or you are unable to pay any of your medical expenses out of pocket, these are all costs that you are entitled to recover if you have a mass tort lawsuit.
• Keep Your Employment Records – Do your injuries prevent you from working (or have they prevented you from working in the past)? If so, your employment records will also be key documentation of the costs of your injuries. Paystubs, W-2s, and written communications with your employer (including emails and text messages) that document your lost earnings are all forms of documentation that your lawyer can use to help prove how much you are entitled to recover.
• Keep Track of Your Daily Pain Levels – If you have a mass tort case, your financial losses could represent just a fraction of the total value of your claim. Victims’ non-financial losses will far exceed their financial losses in many cases. With this in mind, in addition to keeping track of your out-of-pocket costs, you will want to keep track of your non-financial costs as well. This starts with keeping track of your pain levels on a day-to-day basis.
• Document All of the Ways Your Injuries Interfere with Your Daily Life – In addition to keeping track of your daily pain levels, you should also try to document the other ways your injuries interfere with your daily life. Are you unable to enjoy your hobbies? Are you unable to clean your house or mow your lawn? Do you have trouble sleeping, eating or walking? These are also non-financial costs for which you can (and should) seek just compensation.
• Document All of the Ways Your Injuries Interfere with Your Relationships – If your injuries interfere with your relationships, these are non-financial losses that you will want to document as well. If you are unable to spend meaningful time with your children, if you are unable to spend intimate time with your spouse, or if you are unable to go out on evenings and weekends with your friends, you should write this down to share with your lawyer.

While these are all important steps to take, these are far from the only steps involved in documenting the effects of receiving a defective medical implant, taking a defective drug or using a defective product. To make sure that you have all of the documentation you need to seek the financial compensation you deserve, you should discuss your case with an experienced mass tort lawyer as soon as possible.

Discuss Your Case with a Mass Tort Lawyer at Searcy Denney Today

At Searcy Denney, we rely on decades of relevant experience to effectively represent victims in mass tort cases nationwide. If you need to know more about documenting your injuries for a lawsuit, we encourage you to contact us promptly for more information. To speak with an experienced mass tort lawyer in confidence as soon as possible, please call 800-780-8607 or tell us how we can help online today.