Plaintiff was hit in a minor car accident. Defendant admitted liability but claimed plaintiff was uninjured. Since there was no medical confirmation of injury by x-ray or MRI, the case turned on plaintiff’s credibility with regard to the pain she says she suffered from the accident. The jury disbelieved her and awarded no damages. This decision holds that the trial court did not abuse its broad discretion in admitting post-accident photos of the cars involved in the accident or evidence of plaintiff’s husband’s infidelity 14 years before. The trial court may admit such photos without expert testimony in appropriate cases. Here, the photos clearly showed no injury to the cars, contradicting plaintiff’s husband’s testimony and also allowing an inference that the collision was mild and hence insufficient to cause the pain plaintiff claimed. The infidelity was relevant to the husband’s claim for loss of consortium. Even if error were shown, prejudice was not. The principal issue was plaintiff’s credibility which neither photos nor infidelity reasonably affected.
Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 1 (Prager, J., sitting by assignation); August 12, 2016; 2016 WL 4255012