If the police give me a ticket does it ruin my personal injury case?

Imagine the following scenario:

You are in an auto collision. You did nothing wrong and it is not your fault. The police conclude That you are responsible for the collision. On top of that, the police officer gives you a ticket. On top of that, you go to court to fight the ticket and loose. And on top of all that, you were also injured due to the other driver's negligence.

Does the fact that the police report, the ticket and the traffic court were all against you harm your personal injury claim? The reality is that any insurance adjuster will look at the police report and give it a lot of weight. But as far as a jury, the police report is inadmissible. It is likely that the police officers opinion will be inadmissible. And the fact that you went to court and lost on this issue already (in traffic court) will have no impact on your case.

In rear end collisions, is very unlikely that the police will blame you if you are rear-ended. In a head-on collision, is often more difficult for police officer to figure out what happened. Nonetheless, police officers sometimes do draw conclusions about what happened – and their conclusions are sometimes erroneous.

California vehicle code section 40834 provides:

A judgment of conviction for any violation of this code or of any local ordinance relating to the operation of a motor vehicle or a finding reported under Section 1816 shall not be res judicata or constitute a collateral estoppel of any issue determined therein in any subsequent civil action.

What this means is that if the court concludes that you were speeding, or that you made an illegal turn you will still have an opportunity, in your personal injury trial, to show otherwise.

It is also possible that you were speeding, or that you did make an illegal lane change. It could be the case that the other driver also did something that contributed to the collision. So just because a police report is against you does not mean that you will not have an opportunity to present your case to the jury in your personal injury trial.

Pete Clancy is a personal injury attorney in Oakland. He is a life member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and was named a Rising Star by SuperLawyer magazine for the years 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.