What Role Do Witnesses Play in Personal Injury Cases?

Witnesses can be a great help to your personal injury case, but witnesses must be credible and honest if their testimony is going to be useful to your case. Your personal injury lawyer in Long Island, NY will be able to interview any potential witnesses and help them play a useful role in assisting your claim.

What Role Do Witnesses Play in Personal Injury Cases?

Third-Party Witnesses

The greatest value these witnesses bring to the table is their objective viewpoint. Both insurance companies and courts will put the greatest weight on the testimony of those who have nothing to gain, and also nothing to lose, by the outcome of a case. If a third-party witness saw the accident in which you were injured and can testify that your explanation of the events is accurate, this goes a very long way towards establishing the liability of the responsible party and getting you the compensation you are owed.

Things happen fast in an accident, and sometimes a witness sees something from a completely different angle than any of the parties involved. Sometimes if there’s a dispute over liability or precisely what happened, someone with a different perspective may be able to clear it right up.

Expert Witnesses

Expert witnesses didn’t see the accident, but they can help everyone understand what happened nonetheless. These are witnesses with special expertise in some area, and their job is to take complicated concepts and make them clear to laypersons. The expert witness might be an engineer, for example, who can testify about a defective product, or an accident reconstruction expert who can look at photos from a car wreck and put together the whole scene.

Expert witnesses can be very persuasive, and a good lawyer will have a network of such witnesses to call upon when their help is needed for a claim and will have verified their credentials.

Limitations of Witnesses

Credibility

The first and possibly biggest issue surrounding witness testimony is whether the witness is credible. They must be believable and come across as honest, and even people who actually saw an accident and want to help may not know how to present themselves credibly without some help. In addition, after an accident, some people just want to be involved – some so badly that they’ll claim to have seen things they never did. Your lawyer will assess the credibility of every witness.

Consistency

Witnesses for a case are usually going to be cross-examined by a lawyer from the other side, and that lawyer will have experience in getting witnesses to “trip up” and possibly contradict themselves. Giving testimony can be nerve-wracking under the best of circumstances, and even a completely honest witness may find themselves manipulated into accidentally contradicting themselves. Your lawyer will help all the witnesses for your side be prepared for these tactics.

Help From a Personal Injury Lawyer in Long Island, NY

Talk to Miller, Montiel & Strano at 516-531-2817 for a free, no-obligation consultation on your claim. We’ve been protecting victims in New York City for over 50 years. 

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