Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Plaintiff filed suit (exactly 2 years from date of incident) for Personal Injury (trip & fall) against a Grocery Store (Premises Liability-for overcrowded) and a Doe (Negligence; pushed against Plaintiff), and was told by the store & insurance, that they have no record of Plaintiff being at their store.,,I had taken a picture of Doe outside the store with a 35 mm camera, right after the incident.....and Just days earlier from the incident, I was in a car accident and had taken pictures with the same 35 mm camera... In the film negatives, it shows the sequence, of the car accident (of which there is police and insurance reports with the date of car accident), and then in the same film negatives, in the following sequence, it shows a couple of film negatives of DOE outside the store (that is named in the suit). ,,Question is, would those film negatives (along with written reports of the car accident with the date on) help prove Plaintiff was at the store (days after the car accident)? or is just circumstancial? and/or would my signed declaration, and Plaintiff's signed declaration, stating that we were at the store when the incident occurred, be enough?


Asked on 5/01/15, 3:10 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Robert F. Cohen Law Office of Robert F. Cohen

That's up to the trier of fact. Plaintiff has filed the suit, so plaintiff has the burden of presenting evidence to convince the trier of fact that plaintiff was there. If plaintiff's usual routine involved shopping at this store, this would be helpful. Perhaps plaintiff has a credit card statement that shows purchases at the store or perhaps at an adjacent store at a time close to the injury. Most important are the medical reports and medical experts' testimony as to plaintiff's injuries, their severity, diagnosis, prognosis, and cost of treatment. Unless in small claims, declarations generally are inadmissible as evidence other than to impeach (contradict) a witness for saying something at one time and changing his/her testimony later on.

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Answered on 5/01/15, 3:52 pm


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