Suffolk Orders Vehicle Accident Statements – a Lawyer’s Discovery
On December 2, 2008, Suffolk Circuit Court ordered Progressive Specialty Insurance Company and its insured Defendants to provide auto accident statements to a wrongful death Plaintiff. The victim was the guest passenger of an auto rear-ended by a dumptruck driver. Unconscious at the scene, he soon was brain dead and had life support terminated. Two Progressive claims adjusters recorded a half-dozen statements of their insured drivers and an independent eyewitness within one to six days of the accident.
The insurance company and its insureds withheld their contemporaneous statements and sought to keep them secret throughout the case. That would have allowed them to change their story and/or to claim lack of recollection at will, leaving Plaintiff at their mercy with their victim silenced by wrongful death.
But Suffolk Circuit Court rejected the Progressive claim of special privilege. It considered “possible impeachment” and the “possible suppression of relevant evidence which could relate to witness credibility,” as well as Plaintiff’s need. The pending wrongful death vehicle accident case is Burr v. R.C. Paving and should be tried later this year.
