Barring Admission of a Defendant’s Sympathy: AB 2723 (2002)

California

Provided for the inadmissibility of certain evidence as a matter of public policy, including portions of statements, writings, or benevolent gestures expressing sympathy or a general sense of benevolence relating to the pain, suffering, or death of a person involved in an accident and made to that person or to the family of that person, which are inadmissible as evidence of an admission of liability in a civil action. The reform did not make admissions of fault inadmissible.

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