The Power of Words

Words have great power, as any linguist will tell you.  The particular word chosen can greatly influence the audience’s perception.   For example, in personal injury litigation, it is common to call a collision between two cars an “accident”.  That is how people generally speak about such things.  The problem is that the word ”accident” is used in our vernacular to indicate something that has occurred through no one’s fault.   

Webster New Word Dictionary defines “accident” as a chance happening or mishap.  Calling a collision an accident has the tendency to create an inappropriate bias for the defendant, by creating a conscious or unconscious misunderstanding that the incident was fault-free, or a chance happening.

 A one-liner used by some insurance company lawyers in closing argument to the jury is “Accidents happen.”  This suggests to the jury that no one should be held accountable.  It was no one’s fault.  My one-liner response is “Carelessness causes accidents”.   Since personal injury litigation is about fault and damages, it is important to minimize the use of the word “accident”.  I prefer “incident”, “collision” or, best of all, “wreck” or “crash”.  Even “fender bender” is better than “accident”. Similarly, insurance company lawyers refer to collisions between cars and children as “child dart out” cases.  Smart plaintiff’s lawyers call them “pedestrian knockdown” cases.  You can easily see that the label we place on a situation can influence how it is perceived.