I recently concluded a car accident trial in Gwinnett County. We won the case, but the jury did not award my client any money for pain and suffering. After the trial concluded, I spent about an hour speaking with the jury about the outcome and the reasons they did not award my client more money. The main reason was the credibility of my client. It is important to remember that, in most personal injury trials, the main witness is the injured Plaintiff. It is also important to remember that the Plaintiff is always a biased witness. For this reason, it is imperative for the Plaintiff to seem believable to the jury. In this particular case, through no fault of her own, my client’s credibility was certainly questionable.

The reason for the credibility issue in this case was several prior injuries that occurred within five years of the car accident at question in the case. The defense did a pretty good job attacking my client on these prior injuries, but the main issue leading to the credibility problem was that my client had not fully informed me about these prior injuries.

Had I been armed with more knowledge, I believe that I would have been able to preemptively save my client’s credibility. The lesson to be learned here is that you must tell your lawyer EVERYTHING. If you don’t recall how many prior accidents you’ve had and what injuries ensued, you are not ready to go to trial. I thought I had all of the information I needed. Turns out that I didn’t.