It’s Admissible! It’s Dispositive! Dashcam Video and Vehicle Data as Evidence

In our What We’re Reading post this week, we highlighted an article entitled “$100K Tesla Model S Totaled In Crash: TeslaCam Footage Used As Evidence” from InsideEVs, which illustrates the value of dashcam video in determining liability in an accident. In this particular case, a “TeslaCam”—a standard feature on all of Tesla’s vehicles—captured a head-on collision involving a Model S. As the driver in the Model S was turning left through an intersection, the dashcam caught another vehicle in cross traffic running the light, thus causing the collision. The Tesla driver’s insurance company was able to use the dashcam footage to place clear blame on the other driver. Without it, the Tesla driver would have been found at fault. 

This got us wondering: how has dashcam video and other vehicle data been used as evidence in litigation? 

According to one automotive enthusiast website, dashcam footage is almost always admissible in court, as long as it meets the standard criteria for admissibility under the applicable rules of evidence—in sum, it must be probative, accurate, and authentic.  

And it can be dispositive.

A brief survey of current caselaw bears this out. In a decision published just this week by the Bronx County Supreme Court, the Court extensively considered dashcam footage in deciding a motion for summary judgment in a personal injury action arising from a rear-end collision. In Cupeles v. Carballosa, et al., No. 338592019E, 2022 WL 1417702 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. May 2, 2022), the Court called the Plaintiff’s submission of dashcam footage taken from the Defendants’ vehicle “crucial,” placing more emphasis on the footage even than the parties’ expert accident reconstructionists’ opinions. The Court wrote that it would consider “all of the submitted expert opinion only to the extent that it reveals or clarifies something about the Accident not already apparent from review of the submitted dashcam video.” Id. In a slightly earlier case involving a collision between a vehicle and a backhoe, the King County Supreme Court refused to consider “the opinion of the accident reconstructionist experts” at all “inasmuch as the subject accident was captured on video.” Jacques v. Harris Water Main & Sewer Contractors, Inc., 64 Misc 3d 1232(A), at *2 (Sup. Ct. Kings Cty. 2019) (it is not clear from the decision whether this video was from a dashcam, but the result is the same).

Likewise, EDR data has long been accepted in both civil and criminal cases, with courts generally rejecting reliability challenges. See, e.g., Com. v. Zimmermann, 70 Mass. App. Ct. 357, 360-64, 873 N.E.2d 1215, 1218-20 (2007); Matos v. State, 899 So. 2d 403, 406 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2005); Bachman v. Gen. Motors Corp., 332 Ill. App. 3d 760, 768, 776 N.E.2d 262, 273 (2002).

In Bachman v. Gen. Motors Corp., for example, Plaintiffs alleged they were injured when their Chevy Cavalier’s airbag “inadvertently” deployed, causing a collision. Defendants sought to rely on data downloaded from the vehicle’s Sensing and Diagnostic Module (SDM) (effectively the same as EDR); Plaintiffs moved to exclude the data as unreliable under Illinois’s evidentiary standard (Illinois follows the Frye standard for admissibility). The trial court admitted the evidence, finding that EDR data was not new or novel, and was generally accepted within the relevant scientific community. The appellate court affirmed, noting: “crash sensors such as the SDM have been in production in automobiles for over a decade, and the microprocessors that run them and record their data also run everyday appliances, such as computers and televisions.” 332 Ill. App. 3d at 779-80, 776 N.E.2d at 281. The appellate court also rejected Plaintiffs’ contention that the data should be excluded as “proprietary and confidential,” because “any competent engineer could interpret the SDM data using documents General Motors produced in discovery and a calculator” and “(1)whether the workings of General Motors SDM are kept ‘confidential’ from competitors, (2) whether the SDM records data pursuant to uniform standards, and (3) whether NHTSA holds public meetings are not issues pertinent to determining whether the process of recording and downloading SDM data is generally accepted by the relevant scientific community.” 332 Ill. App. 3d at 781-82, 776 N.E.2d at 283.  

Outside of the courtroom, NHTSA routinely uses EDR data in its crash investigations to recreate and understand crashes, helping to aid in the advancement of vehicle safety.

We, of course, see no reason why VPD should be treated any differently—or be any less dispositive. Indeed, it should be even more so, given its superior volume of signals and relative fidelity.  For more on this, read here and here.  

Copyright Nelson Niehaus LLC

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Firm, its clients, or any of its or their respective affiliates. This blog post is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.