Legal Definitions - corroborate

To corroborate means to provide additional evidence or information that supports and strengthens an existing statement, claim, or piece of evidence, making it more credible or certain. In a legal context, it's about confirming the truthfulness or accuracy of testimony or an assertion by presenting independent, supporting facts.

Here are some examples to illustrate this concept:

• Criminal Investigation: Imagine a witness tells the police they saw a suspect's car, a blue sedan, speeding away from a crime scene. Later, investigators find security camera footage from a nearby business that shows a blue sedan, matching the witness's description, driving rapidly away from the area at the exact time of the incident. The security camera footage corroborates the witness's statement, making their account more reliable and strengthening the evidence against the suspect.

• Contract Dispute: Consider a situation where two business partners are in a dispute. One partner claims they had an oral agreement to split all project expenses equally, but there's no written contract. To support this claim, they present bank statements showing several instances where they transferred exactly half of various project-related expenses to the other partner, and emails discussing these transfers. These financial records and emails corroborate the claim of an oral agreement for equal expense sharing, providing independent evidence that supports the assertion.

• Insurance Claim: A homeowner files an insurance claim stating that a severe hailstorm caused significant damage to their roof. The insurance adjuster initially inspects the roof and notes some damage. To further strengthen their claim, the homeowner provides dated photographs of large hailstones on their property immediately after the storm, along with a local weather report confirming a severe hailstorm in their specific area on that date. The photographs and weather report corroborate the homeowner's claim that the damage was caused by the hailstorm, adding independent verification to their account.