If your workers comp deposition has been scheduled, you’re probably somewhere between nervous and dreading it. That’s normal, and it’s usually based on a wrong picture of what the day looks like.
A deposition is not a trial. There’s no judge, no jury, no courtroom. It’s usually a conference room, or these days a video call. The defense attorney asks you questions, you answer, and a court reporter types down every word.
That last part is the whole thing. There is a transcript. What you say becomes a document that exists for the rest of your case, and every answer you give later gets compared against it.
Here’s where people get into trouble.
Mistake 1: Guessing
The most common damage in a deposition isn’t a lie. It’s a guess.
“About how far can you walk?” “I don’t know — a couple hundred yards, maybe?” You were being helpful. You were estimating. Now there’s a number in the transcript, under oath, and if you turn out to be wrong in either direction, the question isn’t about walking anymore. It’s about whether you’re reliable.
“I don’t know” and “I don’t remember” are complete, acceptable, truthful answers. Nobody thinks less of you for using them. Use them whenever they’re true.
Mistake 2: Getting prior injuries wrong
This is the one that does the most damage, and it’s almost never dishonesty.
You’ll be asked whether you’ve ever hurt your back before. You think about it, and honestly nothing comes to mind, so you say no. What you forgot is the chiropractor you saw twice in 2014 after a fender bender, or the time you mentioned back pain to your family doctor during a physical years ago.
The defense attorney already has those records. They pulled them before the deposition. The question wasn’t really a question.
And here’s the thing: the old injury almost never hurts your claim. People have prior injuries. Bodies accumulate history. What hurts your claim is a transcript where you said no and a record that says yes — because now everything else you said is in play.
Before your deposition, sit down and genuinely think back. Old wrecks, old jobs, urgent care visits, anything you saw anyone for. If you’re not sure, say you’re not sure. “I may have seen someone years ago, I don’t recall the details” is bulletproof. “No” is not.
Mistake 3: Exaggerating
Under pressure, when someone is questioning whether you’re really hurt, there’s a pull toward making it undeniable. “I can’t do anything.” “I never leave the house.” “I don’t sleep at all.”
Don’t. Those absolutes are almost never literally true, and they’re easy to disprove — with surveillance, with your own social media, with your medical records, sometimes with something you said to your own doctor last month.
Your real symptoms are enough. They’re why you have a claim. Overstating them is the fastest way to make a legitimate injury look like a performance.
Mistake 4: Minimizing
The opposite error, and it comes from a good place. A lot of injured workers are proud, uncomfortable complaining, and raised not to make a fuss. Asked how they’re doing, they say “oh, I’m getting by.”
That’s now in the transcript, and it will be read back later.
The honest answer to how you’re doing is usually specific rather than either extreme: what you can do, what you can’t, what it costs you afterward.
Mistake 5: Volunteering
Silence in a deposition is deliberate. The attorney stops talking, and most people find that unbearable and keep going.
Answer the question you were asked. Then stop. If they want more, they’ll ask. Filling silence is how people wander into subjects nobody was going to raise.
Mistake 6: Arguing
At some point a question may feel insulting — an implication that you’re faking, or exaggerating, or could work if you wanted to. The instinct is to defend yourself.
The defense attorney is doing a job, and getting you rattled is part of it. Someone who’s angry talks more, guesses more, and overstates more. Stay flat. It’s not personal, and treating it as personal costs you.
What good preparation actually looks like
Review your own timeline first. Date of injury, how it happened, who you told, when you first got treatment, which doctors you’ve seen. Not memorized — just fresh.
Do the prior-injury inventory. Genuinely, on paper.
Meet with your attorney beforehand. This is not optional, and any lawyer worth having will insist. You should walk in knowing roughly what’s coming.
Listen to the whole question before answering. Slow is fine. Nobody is timing you.
Answer what was asked, in the smallest number of words that’s honest.
The one thing to hold onto
You are not there to win. Nobody wins a deposition.
You’re there to tell the truth clearly and consistently, and then go home. A deposition where you said “I don’t know” fourteen times and gave no memorable soundbite is a good deposition.
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If your deposition is scheduled, don’t walk in unprepared. Speak with a Georgia workers comp lawyer. That preparation is a one-on-one conversation, and it’s worth having before the date, not after. Call the office.
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*Be Informed. Be Aware. Be Prepared.*