Personal Injury Law

Missouri Auto Accident Evidence Issues at Trial: Property Damage Admissible? Sometimes ....

By Benjamin J. Sansone, Esq.

As a St Louis car accident lawyer, I have handled 100s of car accident cases where the property damage to the vehicles was minimal. Many times, despite the minor property damage to the vehicles, the impact is described as significant and the injured driver suffers legitimate and real injuries. However, Missouri car insurance companies love to argue that if the property damage is minimal than the Missouri car accident attorney and the claimant are exaggerating their injuries and cannot actually be hurt as bad as they claim.

Prior to trial, Missouri personal injury lawyers file what are called Motions in Limine, which are pretrial motions asking the judge to rule on certain issues of evidence they anticipate will be presented at trial. In such a case as described above, you can bet the insurance defense lawyer will try to present pictures or repair bills and argue minor impact based on the damage to the vehicles.

Under Missouri car accident law, evidence of the property damage should be excluded unless the auto insurance lawyers "lay a proper foundation" to admit pictures or repair bills without expert testimony explaining the correlation between the property damage and the Plaintiff's injuries. Moreover, the evidence must be more probative than prejudicial.

Injury Law Motion on Evidence explaining Missouri Car Accident Attorney Motion in Limine to Exclude Evidence of Property Damage

Outside Resources: Missouri Cases Discussing Evidence in Auto Accident Case and Property Damage:

Boland v. Jando

Ford v Gordan - Probative value must be greater than prejudicial effect

Full post as published by Missouri Injury Law Blog on November 24, 2010 (boomark / email).