Ticket Impeachment

The Mississippi Court of Appeals decided Owens v. Kelly on Tuesday located here.  The issue dealt with whether the giving of a ticket was proper impeachment.  The Court of Appeals affirmed finding it was.  The relevant language of the case states:

"On appeal, the plaintiff argues that the trial judge erred by allowing Wilburn to be cross-examined about, and other limited references to, the fact that she was cited for failure to yield and paid a fine rather than contesting the citation. We conclude that Wilburn’s payment of the ticket was proper impeachment of her testimony, in which she generally sought to blame Taylor for the wreck. Therefore, the judge did not abuse his discretion by allowing Wilburn to be cross-examined on the subject. In addition, considered in the context of all the evidence at trial, and given that Wilburn’s payment of the ticket was proper impeachment, any other mention of the ticket during the course of trial was harmless, even assuming that it was error. Accordingly, we affirm."

I can see a bunch of plaintiff and defense attorneys begin to use this in various ways.