one-way street, suddenly backed up, striking Taylor's car. At least, that's the way Taylor saw it. Defendant claimed, instead, that Taylor's car simply rear-ended his while the paratransit vehicle was proceeding through the intersection.
At trial, the court allowed the admission of a police accident report into evidence, penned by an officer who did not see the accident occur. The report was based, instead, on what Taylor and defendant told the officer.
Nay, nay, says AD2 in Taylor v. NYCTA, 2015 NY Slip Op 05931 (2d Dep't 7/8/15). Without even citing its own Johnson v. Lutz, the Court reminds us that the accident report was nothing but inadmissible hearsay in written form; a compilation of information "not explicitly attributed to any witness[.]" How about the statement directly attributed to Taylor, to the effect that defendant had stopped at the intersection and attempted to make a right-turn the wrong-way into a one-way street? Is that hearsay too? Of course it is and, since "[t]his statement is consistent with plaintiff's [Taylor's] trial testimony . . . [it] is not admissible as a statement against interest."