Credibility is extremely important. At trial, the amount a plaintiff is awarded hinges heavily on the specific facts of a case, which separate one claim from another. It is a court’s job to determine facts based on the evidence before them, and a primary source of evidence is often the plaintiff themselves. Basically, the amount of a claim is dependent on whether or not the court believes the plaintiff.
A plaintiff can ruin their personal injury case in a number of ways by fabricating or exaggerating events. If a judge finds that a plaintiff has exaggerated one event, it is likely to affect the plaintiff’s credibility as a whole and cast doubt on the entirety of their case.
This was likely true in a recent Supreme Court of British Columbia case, where the judge stated:
I have concluded that Mr. Willis is not an accurate or reliable historian of the motor vehicle event. His trial recollection is at odds with what he related to the ambulance paramedics and to the emergency triage staff at the hospital. Photographs of his vehicle only show a single visible pushed-in dent on the upper‑left portion of the vehicle rear trunk. Accordingly, the force of the rear‑end impact was likely not considerable.
http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/SC/15/18/2015BCSC1817.htm
Despite doctors supporting ongoing injuries, the plaintiff was only given a pain and suffering award of $25,000 (which was reduced to $20,000 after a failure to mitigate). An award of this scale is extremely low for an injury, that like in this case, persisted beyond the three year mark and was likely to persist into the future. The judge likely decided the plaintiff was prone to exaggeration of his injuries, as he has been caught exaggerating the circumstances of an accident.
Often exaggeration is not even intentional. Memories fade and car accidents are traumatic events. A competent lawyer will prepare their client and review all evidence prior to allowing their client to speak before a court or meet with an opposing lawyer.
