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Photos As Evidence |
How the courts interpret the picture |
In a recent case where a woman suffered catastrophic injuries on a coal haul road while driving to work, photographs of the state of the road were crucial, and the place of photographic evidence in court proceedings was further developed. |
The injured woman had had a general recollection of "feeling unsafe" on the road, but no specific recollection of the accident. |
In the first court to hear the case, the judge studied photographs of the road surface and heard expert accounts of what the photographs indicated about the state of the road. |
The judge decided that the woman had lost control of her vehicle because she couldn't differentiate the hard running surface from the softer edge, as the road was covered in coal dust. He found that when the left-hand wheels of her vehicle entered the soft shoulder, she overcorrected and lost control. The vehicle rolled several times, causing severe injuries including quadriplegia. He awarded the woman over $8 million in compensation. |
However, the coal company which was responsible for the road appealed, and the first judge's decision was reversed by the appeal court. One appeal judge said it was "necessary to bear in mind the colour, and uniformity in colour, could be affected by the quality of a photograph and the conditions in which it was taken" and considered that there was a "well discernible difference in colour between the central part of the road and the shoulders". The judge did not believe the injured woman would have been misled to the extent of driving onto the shoulder. |
The case shows that judges will look at photos and form their own views. They are not required to confine the use of photos to describing what a witness says they saw. |
It also shows that, importantly, photographs can be treated as primary evidence, though the circumstances under which they are taken must always be taken into consideration when deciding what weight to attach to them. |
