How the slow passage of time steals away from you the evidence for your claim
1. What is the thief of time?
A metaphor that refers to the reduced quality (or quantity) of evidence with the passage of time: scene photos that were misplaced, memories that had faded, or even witnesses who had gone missing/uncontactable. In extreme cases, even the identity and contact details of the Third Party (on whom the originating process must be served) are missing.
2. When does the thief of time strike?
For instance, cases that were earmarked for direct settlement with Third Party insurers, but eventually were rejected due to say, liability or causation issues. By the time these cases were passed to a lawyer to handle, it could be months or even years since the accident. By then, the evidence had “gone stale”. The evidence had been stolen by the thief of time.
3. How can motor workshops guard against the thief of time?
Proper documentation of evidence
The first few days after an accident are critical. This is the time when the accident is still fresh in the driver’s head. Scene photographs, video footage, identity of the Third Party, witness’ contact details have to be obtained quickly before they are accidentally deleted. With these evidence, the chances of an unidentifiable Third Party, or liability being disputed by the Third Party Insurer are significantly reduced.
Interview the driver
Ask how the accident happened. Point out weaknesses in the driver’s story and ask for an explanation. If the explanation is bad, this case may have liability issue later on.
Hire a lawyer right from the beginning
Even for direct settlement cases. For straightforward cases, we help you with the paperwork, negotiate for more and ensure no cases slip under the radar. We know how busy workshops can be.
For more complicated cases, when we come in at the beginning, we make contact with the witnesses early. If we need to re-interview them later when the case is in court, the rapport will be there. Rapport between witness and lawyer goes a long way when it comes to evidence collation and instruction-taking.
4. How can Leagle Sense LLC value-add that others cannot?
To guard against the thief of time, we offer workshops a dedicated and secure storage space in our Client Portal. For instance, if you have 10 cases with us, you will have 1 folder for each case. All evidence (videos, photographs and survey reports) for that case can be uploaded into that folder. Storage is unlimited and free. No more evidence being lost in transition (through a middle agent),or buried under numerous piles of emails.
Unless already available, we will contact the owners or drivers directly for evidence. Where liability is suspect, we also interview the drivers to understand how the accident happened. All these take place at the beginning of the claims process, not when the claim is already in court (by which time the thief of time may have struck). We act as a custodian against the thief of time.
