In states like North Carolina, even one careless sentence to an insurance adjuster can destroy your entire injury claim.
In the latest episode of our Road to Recovery series, catastrophic injury lawyer Clarke Speaks explains the enormous risk of giving a recorded statement without legal guidance, especially in a contributory negligence state where being even 1% at fault means you recover zero.
Learn how adjusters use vague questions about your medical history or prior injuries to manufacture doubt, reduce the value of your claim, or eliminate it altogether. We’ll share real examples of how innocent, truthful answers (“Yeah, I hurt my back once…”) can later be twisted to suggest a preexisting condition.
You’ll also find out why your first steps after an accident should be: stabilize medically, call an attorney, and make sure your doctor documents the key distinctions insurers love to exploit.
Here’s what we discuss in this episode:
⚠️ Contributory Negligence = Zero Recovery
🎯 Loaded Questions About Prior Injuries
🕵️ How Adjusters Erode Your Case
🩺 Get Medical Clarity Early
📞 Call a Lawyer Before a Recorded Statement
Client Links
Learn more about how Speaks Law Firm can help you: https://www.speakslaw.com/
Schedule your FREE case review: https://www.speakslaw.com/our-attorney/r-clarke-speaks/#contactFormTarget
Find us on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3R40YMP
Transcript (Click To Read)
Clark: I’m Clark Speaks, the catastrophic injury lawyer. Welcome to the verdict.
Carson Grace Toomer: So what’s at risk talking to this insurance adjuster without consulting with someone?
Clark: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, um, in North Carolina, uh, the biggest risk that you have is that they determine that you contributed in some way to your own injuries, your own accident. So North Carolina is one of a few states, just a couple of states, so a handful of states that have something called contributory negligence. So if you were, if they were 99% at fault and you were 1% at fault, then you recover zero. No matter how great your damages are, no matter how great your injuries are, um, if you were at all responsible for your own injuries, then you recover nothing. And so what they may be doing is looking for a basis to reduce or to eliminate your claim completely through contrib or something along those, like contributory negligence or something like that. The other thing that they might be doing is looking for a basis for, uh, reducing the value of your claim. So they might ask you about your preexisting conditions, you know, your previous medical history. There’s nothing wrong with them asking you that. They should ask you that. If I’m doing my job and I was representing the insurance company, I would ask that too. So they’re not illegal or there’s nothing illegal or immoral about doing that. But it’s a problem because you have to. First of all, you may not necessarily know. So for example, if your back is hurt in an accident and they ask you, have you ever hurt your back before? I mean, who has not hurt their back before? You know, everybody’s hurt their back in some way. You know, do you have any previous back injuries? That’s an ambiguous, you know, an open ended question. You know, the real question is, do you have any unresolved back injuries that affect exactly the same location that is hurt in this accident in exactly the same way? You know, now, now that’s a question that might have relevance otherwise it has the potential to confuse somebody, you know, and could be harmful. So if you say, yeah, my back hurt, you know, I hurt my back this. And as we get older, we have more and more of these kinds of incidents in our lives, you know. So for example, if someone were to ask me, have you ever hurt your back before? Sure, yeah, I’ve hurt my back. You know, I, uh, you know, pulled a muscle, get hit with a baseball and not when I was nine years old, you know, by this, you know, phenomenal pitcher and all. And you know, I heard sports growing, growing up And I heard. Heard it, you know, uh, maybe trying to surf or do something with my kids that I had no business doing. But, but, but I, But I don’t have unresolved back pain. My back is fine. You know, so if I were to get in an accident and I weren’t, and I were to be asked that question, have you ever been hurt your back before? Yeah, I’ve hurt my back before. Okay. And then, uh, how’d you hurt your back? Well, when I was little, I, uh, you know, I got hit with a baseball right in the back by this kid who was crazy talented and much better than I. And so, uh, that was a problem. And so, uh, then they don’t ask any more questions. Well, now we come up to trial on us and they say, well, um, did your back hurt? Yes. Wasn’t it true that your back was hurt before? Isn’t it true that your back was hurt in 1976 or whatever? You know, isn’t it true that. You know. And you can see how now they have eroded my claim that there’s no relationship between these two things. One of them was resolved, you know, long ago, and then one of them is, uh, a recent injury. But if these things aren’t clear and now I would have an opportunity to explain myself, and a good personal injury attorney would say, hey, can you explain to me how both of these things are true? You had an injury in 1978 or whatever, and then you have an injury now, but one doesn’t impact the other. Then I can say, well, this injury was resolved years ago and it didn’t give me any more trouble. And this injury is new, and it’s in a different place, and it hurts in a different way. And then I have not had any problems with it before. So, so that. That’s in a way, but, but, but, but it’s still. They’ve created a doubt. They’ve created. They’ve created a. A, uh, reason to lessen the value and to reduce the value of your claim. And so what you’d rather do, rather than try to rehabilitate that statement, is to prevent that problem from happening in the first place by having a experienced professional personal injury attorney with you when you’re making that original statement. Uh, so there’s two ways that statement can be problematic. The first way is, is they can eliminate the value of your claim altogether in certain circumstances. The second way is they can reduce it in other circumstances. And that’s by no means an exhaustive list of the things they can do to try to Eliminate or reduce. But that’s an example of each of those things.
Carson Grace Toomer: And that’s where going to a physician and getting checked out after the accident comes in helpful, right? Am I sure?
Clark: So the first
00:05:00
Clark: thing I would do is to. Well, if you have to have emergent medical care, then by all means, go to the physician first. Once you are stable, then I think the next call needs to be to an experienced legal professional who can help you make sure that you answer those questions and make sure that you’re making sure. Make sure that you’re asking the questions that you need to. For example, you know, what you may do in that situation is your lawyer or your case manager, the paralegal who’s communicating with you during the dependency of your claim might say to you, hey, when you go to the physician this last time, can you please ask his opinion on this? Will you have any ongoing problems as a result of this collision? And then a lot of times that doctor will put it in the medical report, and that’ll save you some time and energy and trouble, you know, and then we can say, hey, can you make clear to your doctor that this injury is in a different location than what your previous back pain has been? So then they can say, well, yeah, I mean, I had a, uh, pain in my, uh, shoulder from where, you know, I had, uh, you know, playing softball or whatever, but this is in my lower back that it’s hurting me now, and this is a different place. And so that way you can. It’s clear in the, uh, medical records. So a lot of this comes back to clarity and complete and accurate information more so than anything else. But we want to be precise about it. And also, your memory fades as time goes on, so you want to make sure that the accuracy of this information is important. So we do want you to be able to document these things, uh, properly. And the way to do that is to communicate with your legal, uh, professionals going into these medical appointments.
Carson Grace Toomer: Well, thank you for talking to me about a recorded statement following an injury. We’ll see you guys next time.
Clark: Thanks for joining us. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We’ll see you next time.
