In personal injury cases, obtaining witness statements can mean the difference between reaching settlement and having to litigate. In many cases, the version of events between the injured person and the person alleged to be responsible for the accident can be extremely different. In such cases, courts, injury lawyers, insurance lawyers and insurers look to corroborating and independent evidence, independent eye witness accounts.
Witness statements can be important for determining liability and damage in a personal injury case. The injured person is one witness. In order to buster or support an account of events causing the injury, obtaining and disclosing a statement of what occurred provided by a third-party witness to the incident is very useful. The best witness statement is from a person who is not involved in the incident in any way except as a witness, is not related to any party to the incident and is otherwise credible. Obtaining witness statements early in the case is also important – witnesses’ account of events are more reliable if obtained at the time or near the time of the accident.