Caballero-Quinones v. Wilder, 51 Fla. L. Weekly D821 (Fla. 6th DCA Apr. 17, 2026):

The plaintiff, a USPS mail carrier, was stopped at a red light in his mail truck at a busy intersection when a Polk County Sheriff’s deputy drove through the intersection after being called for an emergency, colliding with another vehicle that hit the plaintiff.

During the testimony of the Sheriff’s office’s representative, the witness admitted that the Sheriff’s safety board had determined the crash was preventable, and that it was the deputy’s fault.

The plaintiff sought to introduce the sheriff’s office representative’s deposition testimony into evidence to illuminate the sheriff’s office investigation. The trial court excluded it based on the accident report privilege, the traffic citation privilege and 90.407 (subsequent remedial measures).

The court reversed. It found the plain language of section 316.066 creates a privilege when a person involved in the crash makes a statement to law enforcement for the purpose of creating a crash report.

The traffic citation privilege, section 316.650(9) bars evidence of traffic citations but not the investigation surrounding it. 90.407 makes evidence of subsequent remedial measures inadmissible, NOT the evidence of investigations conducted to determine whether to take subsequent remedial measures.

Finally, the trial court did not conduct a 90.403 analysis in refusing to admit the evidence. However, on appeal the defendant urged the appellate court to affirm based on the tipsy coachman doctrine. Because the trial court never performed the requisite 90.403 balancing analysis, it could not be conducted for the first time on appeal.

The court reversed and remanded for a new trial, finding error in the exclusion of this evidence (but stated that if raised below, the trial court on remand could conduct the analysis.