Christopher Ladd was injured in a car accident in August 2003.  He was a passenger on a car in Salt Lake City on I-80.

His case is unusual because it involves two crashes and a dream.

To win an auto accident case, a plaintiff (Ladd in this case) must prove negligence on the part of the defendant and causation.  In other words, was the injury caused by the negligence.

In this case, Ladd lost because he couldn’t prove that the injury was caused by the negligence of the defendant.  Here is why.

There were two car crashes separated by several minutes.  Everyone agrees that Ladd’s vehicle was struck twice.  The dispute arises in deciding whether Ladd was in the vehicle at the time of the second impact.

While no eyewitness saw exactly what happened, the eyewitnesses thought that Ladd had been ejected at the time of the first crash and he lay in the median until the police discovered him. Because Ladd suffered a concussion, he had no memory of the accident and couldn’t comment.

About six months later, Ladd had a dream.  In his dream, he was not ejected after the first accident.  Instead, he exited the vehicle under his own power and was standing next to it when it was struck.  The second impact was what threw him into the median and caused the brain injury.

Judge Henriod threw the case out.  The court of Appeal agreed.  They said that a dream is not sufficient evidence to win a case.  Ladd could only win if he had some other sort of evidence.  That could include his own memory, witness statements, photographs, etc.  Because his only evidence was a dream, his case was dismissed.