I Don’t Care If You Got A Ticket


Many law firms will not accept a client in a personal injury case if the potential client received a ticket in a crash. That is because those law firms would rather get the “best” client. That means they want to represent the other driver if possible, and if they accept you as a client, then they must turn down who they think is the better client.

But what do tickets mean in a personal injury lawsuit?

Absolutely nothing.

Police officers usually do not see crashes happen. They write tickets after the crash occurred. Tickets are not admissible evidence in court because they are what are called “hearsay.” That means that a jury will never learn that you received a ticket except in very few circumstances.

Police officers do not determine who is at-fault in a crash. The only thing a police officer tries to do is determine if somebody broke the law, and judges often disagree with police officers over tickets. Tickets get dismissed very days in Florida.

Even a claims adjuster’s does not mean anything in a personal injury lawsuit. The claims adjuster did not witness the crash and often relies upon hearsay to make a liability decision. I’ve beaten claims adjusters’ opinions before.

Juries decide who is at fault in a personal injury lawsuit, and they determined that based upon the testimony and evidence that both sides present. Tickets do not matter. Police officers’ opinions do not matter claims adjusters’ opinions do not matter. Tickets do not matter.

The other issue is that for that is what is called a “pure comparative negligence state.” What that means is crashes are not 100% the fault of one party of another, and you can recover the amount of your damages for which you are not at fault. Here is how that works:

Driver A and Driver B get into a crash together. Driver A is 75% at-fault. Driver B is 25% at-fault. If Driver A and Driver B both have one dollar in damages each, then Driver A can collect $0.25 of his one dollar and damages, and to Driver B can collect $0.75 of her damages.

Guess who want firms would rather represent? Driver B, of course.

I do not agree with that philosophy. I think that everybody should be able to recover as much of their damages as possible. Denying representation a potential client because he received a traffic ticket does not set well with me. But that is how many large law firms operate.

I do not mind accepting cases that other law firms have turned down just because the client is received a traffic ticket. I do not mind it at all. I love it when I get a great result for a client that other law firms didn’t want.

That makes my day.