Police Reports as Evidence in Your Car Accident Injury Case
In some kinds of injury cases — most notably, car accidents — a police report may have been ready in connection with the underlying incident. While police reports are generally inadmissible if your case gets to court, the report can still be very useful in most individual injury cases. In this article, we’ll suggest some tips on how to use a police report to bolster your side of an injury claim.
As we’ll discuss later on, you aren’t typically able to introduce a police report in court — to attempt to “prove” that someone did something to cause your injury, for example. But here’s how to obtain and use a police report earlier on in your injury claim.
Requesting Police Records. If you are injured and there is a police report relating to the incident, you should request it from the police department. If you know which law enforcement agency came to the scene and ready a report (county sheriff, state highway patrol), you can simply call the police department or other law enforcement assets and obtain the records. There are also online records request services in many jurisdictions.
Using Police Reports in Settlement Negotiations. Albeit police records are not admissible in court, they can be very useful in private injury settlement negotiations. Prior to bringing a private injury lawsuit, you should gather all medical reports, police reports, and other significant records and draft a request letter. The request letter will summarize the facts of the case, describe each injury, and request compensation for those injuries. If a police report indicates that the other driver or entity was at-fault, you can use the police report as a settlement implement. For example, in the below-referenced car accident case inbetween Carl and Robert, Robert can use the police report as leverage to obtain a good settlement suggest from Carl’s insurance company.
Police Reports Can Provide Significant Facts. A police report will often provide significant information about your case. The police report will likely specify the date of the incident, the weather, names of witnesses to your injury, and other information surrounding the circumstances of your accident. Importantly, if you have the names of witnesses, you may be able to call them to testify at a deposition or trial. Therefore, albeit you cannot use statements in a police report as evidence in court, you can call those same witnesses to testify in court about their individual observations.
A Police Report is Inadmissible “Hearsay”
Wondering why you can’t use a police report in court in most situations? A police report is considered “hearsay,” which is usually inadmissible evidence (unless one of several exceptions apply).
Hearsay is an out of court statement that is suggested in court to prove the truth of the matter asserted in the statement. In other words, it is
- an unsworn statement
- made outside of a courtroom
- by a person without direct skill
- that is used to describe a statement or act of another person.
For example, Steve is called to testify in court. Steve states that Mary said that Carl tripped and injured Robert. Steve’s statement is hearsay because he does not have direct skill of Carl’s tripping of Robert. However, it would not be hearsay if Steve stated that he spotted Carl excursion Robert. In the 2nd version, Steve’s statement is made in-court, he has direct skill of the incident, and his statement is subject to cross-examination from the other party in the lawsuit.
So, why is a police report considered hearsay? Generally, it’s because the police officer did not personally observe the incident. Let’s alter the facts above. Suppose that Carl rear-ended Robert’s car. Mary was walking along the street and observed the car accident. Mary told the police officer that Carl was driving very quick when he rear-ended Robert’s car. The police officer makes notes from his conversation with Mary and places them in the police report. The police report is hearsay because it is an out of court statement containing the police officer’s opinion of the car accident.
A major rationale for the inadmissibility of police reports is that the report is not subject to cross-examination in court. A key tenet of a court trial is that the other party in the case should be given a chance to question any evidence introduced in court, and with a police report, that is not possible.