Evidence in a workers’ compensation case is not gathered by investigators or forensic teams. It is gathered by you. In the hours and days after a workplace injury, the evidence that will either support or undermine your claim is all around you — at the accident scene, in your employer’s files, in your medical records, on your phone, in the memories of people who saw what happened. That evidence does not preserve itself. Accident scenes change. Documents get discarded. Witnesses forget details or leave the job. If you do not take steps to capture and preserve the evidence early, it may not be available when you need it.
A workers’ compensation claim is ultimately decided on the evidence presented to the Workers’ Compensation Board. The stronger your evidence, the harder it is for anyone to dispute your claim. The weaker your evidence, the more room there is for the insurance carrier to challenge the nature of the injury, its connection to your work, or its severity. This article explains what evidence matters, how to gather it, and how to preserve it.
Document the accident scene
If you are physically able to do so, photograph the location where the injury occurred. Take photographs from multiple angles. Capture the condition that caused or contributed to the injury — a wet floor, a broken railing, a piece of defective equipment, an obstructed walkway, a missing safety guard. Photograph any warning signs that were present or absent. If the lighting was poor, photograph that too.
Take these photographs as soon as possible. Accident scenes change quickly. A wet floor gets mopped. A broken railing gets repaired. A defective piece of equipment gets replaced or removed. Once the scene has been altered, the physical evidence of the condition that caused your injury may no longer exist. Your photographs may be the only record.
If you are unable to photograph the scene yourself — because you are being transported to the hospital, because the injury is too severe, because your phone was damaged — ask a co-worker to take photographs for you. Ask them to send the photographs to you by text or email so you have your own copies with a timestamp.
Identify and contact witnesses
Write down the names and contact information of anyone who witnessed the accident or who arrived at the scene shortly after it happened. Include co-workers, supervisors, customers, delivery drivers, or anyone else who was present. If you do not have their phone numbers, get them. If you cannot get their numbers, write down their full names and where they work.
Witness testimony can be important in a disputed claim. If the insurance carrier argues that the injury did not happen the way you describe, or that it did not happen at work at all, witnesses who saw the accident or its immediate aftermath can corroborate your account. But witnesses are only useful if you can find them later. People change jobs. They move. They forget what they saw. Identifying them immediately — on the day of the accident, not weeks later — preserves this evidence while it is still fresh.
Write your own account of what happened
As soon as you are able, write a detailed account of how the injury occurred. Include the date and time. Include where you were and what you were doing. Describe the sequence of events leading up to the injury. Describe what you felt — what part of your body was affected, what the pain felt like, whether you heard or felt anything unusual. Note any conditions that contributed to the accident — a slippery surface, inadequate lighting, a malfunctioning piece of equipment, a missing safety device.
Write this account for yourself. It does not need to be filed with anyone. Its purpose is to lock in the details while they are fresh in your memory. Months from now, when your case is being reviewed at a hearing, your memory of specific details will have faded. A written account from the day of the injury or shortly after is far more reliable than a recollection formed months later.
Be honest and thorough. Include everything you remember, even details that seem unimportant. Do not embellish and do not leave things out. If there are details you are unsure about, note that uncertainty. An honest account with a few acknowledged gaps is more credible than a perfectly polished narrative.
Your medical record is evidence
The medical record in a workers’ compensation case is not just a history of your treatment. It is evidence. Every visit to your treating physician generates documentation that becomes part of the case file the Workers’ Compensation Board reviews. The doctor’s notes about your symptoms, the clinical findings on examination, the diagnosis, the treatment recommendations, and the opinions about your disability and work capacity — all of this is evidence.
This is why being thorough and honest with your doctor matters so much. Tell your doctor about every symptom. If your back hurts and your leg is numb and you are having trouble sleeping because of the pain, say all of that. If you mention the back pain but not the numbness, and the numbness becomes a significant issue months later, the insurance carrier may argue that the numbness is unrelated to the work injury because it was not reported at the initial visit.
Tell your doctor how the injury occurred. Be specific. The doctor’s record of the mechanism of injury — how it happened — is one of the key pieces of evidence connecting your condition to your workplace. If the medical record says “patient reports back pain” but does not say “patient reports back pain after lifting a heavy object at work,” the connection to your employment is weaker than it needs to be.
Keep copies of all medical records, bills, and correspondence related to your treatment. Request copies of your doctor’s notes after each visit. Keep a file. Organize it by date. If you are referred to specialists, keep their records as well. The complete medical record tells the story of your injury from beginning to end.
Employment and wage records
Your workers’ compensation benefits are calculated based on your average weekly wage. If there is a dispute about what you earned, you will need to prove it. Keep pay stubs, bank deposit records, tax returns, W-2 forms, and any other documentation of your income. If you earned tips, commissions, or overtime, keep records of those as well.
Workers who are paid off the books face a particular challenge because formal wage records may not exist. In those cases, bank deposits, text messages discussing pay, receipts from the employer, and testimony from co-workers about what everyone was paid can help establish the wage. Keep whatever you have. Anything is better than nothing.
If you had concurrent employment — more than one job at the time of the injury — keep records from all employers. Your AWW may include income from concurrent employment, which can increase your benefit amount.
Save all communications
Save every text message, email, voicemail, and letter related to your injury, your claim, or your employment. This includes communications with your employer, with the insurance carrier, with the Workers’ Compensation Board, and with your doctor’s office. Do not delete anything.
Communications with your employer are particularly important. If your employer made statements about the injury, about whether to file a claim, about your job status, or about accommodations for your return to work, those statements may be relevant to your case. Text messages and emails are especially valuable because they are dated, timestamped, and in the other party’s own words.
How Schwartzapfel Holbrook uses evidence in workers’ compensation cases
At Schwartzapfel Holbrook, we review the evidence in every workers’ compensation case with the understanding that disputed claims are decided on documentation, not on what anyone remembers months after the fact. When we take a case, we assess what evidence exists, identify what evidence may still be obtainable, and advise the client on what to preserve going forward.
That review includes the accident scene documentation, witness availability, the completeness of the medical record, the consistency between the worker’s account and the clinical findings, and the strength of the wage documentation. Every piece of evidence either supports the claim or leaves a gap the insurance carrier can exploit. The goal is to close the gaps before they become problems.
Schwartzapfel Holbrook / Fighting For You