The police accident report, known in New York as a Form MV-104, is a document typically used in motor vehicle accident litigation.
It memorializes various pieces of information relevant to the accident, including (among other things):
- When the accident occurred;
- Who was involved in the accident;
- Where the accident occurred;
- Descriptions of the involved vehicles;
- A Diagram of the accident;
- Insurance information; and
- Accident Description/Officer’s Notes. (This section will typically begin with the phrase “At TPO” or “At T/P/O”, which is a commonly-used abbreviation meaning “time and place of occurrence”).
A party will typically seek to utilize the police report at trial, or before trial in connection with a motion for summary judgment.
The New York Appellate Division has clarified the legal standards governing the admissibility of a party’s statement recorded in an uncertified police report:
The use of a statement recorded in a police accident report involves two levels of hearsay, each of which must fit within a hearsay exception to render the statement contained within the report admissible.
At the first level of hearsay, the report itself must be admissible. A properly certified police accident report is admissible where the report is made based upon the officer’s personal observations and while carrying out police duties. CPLR 4518(c) provides that the foundation for the admissibility of, inter alia, the records of a department or bureau of a municipal corporation or of the state may be laid through a proper certification[.] … CPLR 4518(c) is governed by the same standards as the general business record exception. Thus, the certification must set forth that the record was made in the regular course of any business and that it was the regular course of such business to make it, at the time of the act, transaction, occurrence or event, or within a reasonable time thereafter.
At the second level of hearsay, assuming a properly certified police accident report, the statement recorded within the police accident report by the police officer must satisfy a hearsay exception. This Court has held that, even where a police report is properly certified, the hearsay statements of nonparties or unknown sources contained therein may not be admitted for their truth (see Noakes v. Rosa, 54 A.D.3d 317, 318, 862 N.Y.S.2d 573 [“The police report should not have been admitted into evidence as a business record exception to the hearsay rule. The statement in the report that the defendant ‘rear-ended’ the plaintiff was from an unknown source” (citation omitted) ]; DeLuca v. Blanco, 31 A.D.3d 600, 601, 819 N.Y.S.2d 86 [“The trial court properly refused to admit into evidence a statement made by a witness to the accident, who did not testify at the trial, which was contained in the police accident report. The statement did not fall under any of the recognized exceptions to the hearsay rule”]; see also Shehab v. Powers, 150 A.D.3d 918, 919, 54 N.Y.S.3d 104 [“information in a police accident report is inadmissible where the information came from witnesses not engaged in the police business in the course of which the memorandum was made, and the information does not qualify under any other hearsay exception”]; Memenza v. Cole, 131 A.D.3d at 1022, 16 N.Y.S.3d 287 [“Since the source of the information contained in the redacted accident report was not identifiable, it was error to admit it into evidence, inasmuch as it could not be established whether the source of the information had a duty to make the statement or whether some other hearsay exception applied”] ). Where, as here, the police report has not been certified, and a foundation for its admissibility has not been laid by some other method, the report and its contents constitute inadmissible hearsay.
Yassin v. Blackman, 188 A.D.3d 62, 131 N.Y.S.3d 53 (N.Y. App. Div. 2 Dept. Sept. 23, 2020) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
More recently, a court held – in a rear-end car accident case – that a certified copy of the police report was admissible as a “statement against interest”, where “the police officer was acting within the scope of his official duty in the preparation of the report, and the officer’s notation reflected an admission by Defendant that he felt his truck hit Plaintiff’s vehicle in the rear.” Fumo v Ortiz, No. 152255/2022, 83 Misc. 3d 1217(A), 211 N.Y.S.3d 796, 2024 N.Y. Slip Op. 50730(U), 2024 WL 3017452 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Richmond Cty., May 31, 2024).
A certified police report may also be used to support one’s claims, particularly where it corroborates statements in an affidavit. Sroor v. Marziano-Fontana, 2024 WL 3351857, 2024 N.Y. Slip Op. 03776 (N.Y. App. Div. 2 Dept. July 10, 2024).
On the other hand, courts have rejected a party’s attempt to utilize uncertified police accident reports in connection with summary judgment motion practice, on the grounds that the report was not in admissible form. See, e.g., Zeldin v. Larose, 223 A.D.3d 858, 203 N.Y.s.3d 707 (N.Y. App. Div. 2 Dept. Jan. 24, 2024).