How Do I Know If My Sexual Abuse Claim Is Valid?

John Yannone answers questions on how one can determine if they have a valid claim and sufficient evidence to file a sexual abuse claim.

How Do You Determine the Validity of a Sexual Abuse Claim?

As a plaintiff in a sexual abuse claim you have the benefit of being able to take some time to put everything together, so that when you’re ready to pursue the case by filing suit and/or engaging in pre-suit negotiations, you’ve already spent a lot of time putting the case together and lining everything up. You’ve talked to the appropriate witnesses. You’ve talked to the appropriate people that were involved with the perpetrator. You’ve talked to experts both for liability and damages. So you put the whole picture together upfront before you do anything to pursue the claim against the defendant. Again, the investigation would include friends, family, and associates of the victim. We would, in many instances, investigate people surrounding the person who did it and/or the institution, organization, or company where they worked.  You would want to get any kind of rules, regulations, or any other standards that would be applicable to the conduct.

The benefit of the plaintiff is that you do all of this investigating and you’re ready to go before you do the first thing against the defendant. So you can put them back on their heels and move forward swiftly to then continue to develop the case through taking depositions of the relevant people and experts, and finding out more information through the litigation process of getting documents and any evidence that the other side would have.

What Are Some Important Steps In Building A Strong Case?

Well, we do our own investigation. We build the strongest liability case we can in terms of what establishes the duty for whatever the liability is going to be in the case. Typically, the damages somewhat speak for themselves, and you have medical experts to come in and testify to those. They include the doctors treating the victims, as well as forensic medical experts used to tie everything together. In terms of the liability, many times you have to have experts to establish what the duty was and what the breach was in order to make your strongest liability case.

How Do You Investigate Sexual Abuse Cases?

You have investigators go out and talk to witnesses, although many times I talk to witnesses myself. I develop the case with experts, locating the right expert for the right kind of case, and do a lot of work  to get them what they need to evaluate the case. Through the course of any litigation, you have to take the depositions of the witnesses that you’re going to put forth, as well as the people involved from the defense side that from whom you can gain information. So it can be very involved with the number of people and experts involved, but that’s the nature of any type of personal injury case.