Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this brain injury/car accident case and its proceedings.)
Plaintiff offers the following Motion in Limine No. 3, regarding the following topics:
Expert witnesses for the defense trying to offer and discuss wholly misleading and not substantially similar:
(1) night-time photographs;
(2) night-time videos;
(3) animations.
Under the Evidence Code and California case law, it is clear that these topics should not be addressed by any witness at the time of trial of this brain injury case.
MEMORANDUM OF POINTS & AUTHORITIES
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
On September 9, 2005, a completely avoidable high-speed collision occurred on Highway 160 at the intersection of Royal Oaks Avenue shortly before midnight between two vehicles. Sacramento Police Officer Paul Black was rocketing down the road, eastbound, with two county probation officers in his vehicle, returning from a police matter in Roseville.
Black was either heading back to the S.P.D. station where he worked, or was responding to an officer-involved shooting matter in that general direction at 57th Street. He was not authorized to be speeding, and he testified he had no right to be doing so. According to Black, he was not driving in any emergency fashion. Therefore, it is undisputed that he had, at all times relevant, an obligation to adhere to the same rules of the road as a motor vehicle operator as any other citizen.
The speed limit for the eastbound roadway at the area of the crash was, according to the Traffic Collision Report, 35 m.p.h. This was documented after the police conducted an investigation as to the location of nearby signage reflecting the posted speed limit.
Other police witnesses have suggested that perhaps the speed limit was actually 40 m.p.h., conflicting with the police report. A police investigation conducted after the crash concluded, from a speed-from-skid scientific analysis, that Mr. Black was traveling 51.3 m.p.h. before he either steered into a skid (otherwise referred to as a yaw ) or braked sharply and steered with his anti-lock brakes.
Black was driving a 1997 Ford Crown Victoria vehicle. Plaintiffs accident reconstruction engineer Miles Apuni, of MEA Forensics, has determined, using sophisticated computer crash programs and through hand-written calculations which match the computer analysis, that actually Mr. Black was traveling between 53-61 m.p.h. Therefore, his actual speed pre-braking was likely 57 m.p.h., over 20 miles an hour more than the posted speed limit.
As Officer Black approached the intersection of Royal Oaks Avenue that evening, traveling almost 60 m.p.h., at least, pre-skid, defendant Don Choo was waiting at a stop sign and the limit line to make a left-turn across Highway 160. He intended to traverse the two westbound lanes of travel and enter the eastbound lanes. According to Mr. Choo, he nudged his vehicle out past the limit line to gain a line of sight to his left, and although he saw the oncoming Black vehicle, it appeared far enough away that he felt he could safely start the process of making his left-hand turn. The Choo vehicle, a white 2003 Chevrolet Malibu, started out and all of a sudden Mr. Choo perceived the oncoming police vehicle traveling at an extremely high rate of speed, perhaps as much as 100 m.p.h. (See Part 2 of 8.)
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.