Tag:Admissibility

Key Insight: Supreme court affirmed admission of ?membership data reports? generated from plaintiff?s database as business records and rejected defendant?s arguments that they lacked the necessary guarantees of trustworthiness where the records were relied upon in the usual course of business and where evidence indicated the software had been calibrated to ensure accuracy, among other things, and where the records were properly authenticated by testimony regarding the manner in which they were created and evidence the system had been producing accurate results

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: ?Membership data reports? generated from plaintiff?s database

Key Insight: Relying on precedent stating that ?computer-generated data is not hearsay because there is no human declarant?, appellate court held that trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting a document detailing the number of times a particular coupon had been scanned where testimony established that the information in the printout was automatically generated, that the information was safe from alteration while stored in the relevant computer system, that the information had not been altered, and that the computer from which the information was generated was not malfunctioning

Nature of Case: Theft

Electronic Data Involved: Printout of computer generated data

Key Insight: Court found email had not been properly authenticated where the email was not self authenticating and where the email was a purely internal communication between employees of a third party company and thus could not be authenticated by the defense witness who was not an employee of that company, was not listed as a recipient of the email, and testified that he had never seen the document before

Nature of Case: Adversarial action in Bankruptcy

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Key Insight: Vice President?s testimony that electronic security log was kept in regular course of business and that data was entered into the log contemporaneously with the events themselves was sufficient to establish a foundation for the admission of the log as a business record where the exception does not require that the foundation be laid by the custodian of records, but only that ?the record offered to prove a transaction be made in the regular course of business and that it is the regular course of business to make the record at the time of the act or transaction?; a witness?s lack of personal knowledge regarding how the records were created ?merely affects the weight given to the evidence?

Nature of Case: Criminal/theft

Electronic Data Involved: Security log indicating when warehouse was locked and unlocked, and the PIN used to access the facility

Key Insight: Where a forensic examiner appointed by the discovery referee submitted a declaration that the emails admitted into evidence were retrieved from plaintiff?s computer and that the printouts were accurate representations of the retrieved messages, and where the emails contained information only the plaintiff would know and the trial court found that ?the emails ?were, at least in part, authenticated by the plaintiff himself?, the appellate court found that there was sufficient evidence to support the trial court?s finding that the emails were genuine

Nature of Case: Violations of Political Reform Act

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Key Insight: Court found no abuse of discretion for admitting table summarizing defendant?s sales activities for the relevant time period where the corporate investigator of defendant?s suspected theft prior to his prosecution testified that the report was generated by a particular software in the ordinary course of business and where there was the ?logical inference? based on certain facts that the report was prepared ?at or near? the time of the events reported therein as is required by California Evid. Code section 1271 to authenticate a document as a business record

Nature of Case: Grand theft from employer

Electronic Data Involved: Report of defendant’s sales activities

Key Insight: Court held admission of defendant?s cell phone was not error and did not constitute impermissible hearsay where the prosecution sought to show that an undercover officer?s number showed up on defendant?s phone, where the phone was authenticated by the officer?s testimony, and where the telephone was not a ?person? or ?declarant? making ?a communicative ?statement? within the meaning of the relevant hearsay rule; court rejected argument that admission of phone was error because it contained other phone numbers, texts, etc. where defendant failed to show that he was prejudiced and failed to identify any particular message, etc. that the jury would have obtained from the phone

Nature of Case: Criminal

Electronic Data Involved: Cellular phone

Key Insight: Revenue report from database properly considered as business record under ER 803(6) where report was based on data entered and preserved in database in the regular course of business, where the database was regularly maintained and updated by the company?s accountants, where the accountants had personal knowledge of the information entered into the database, and where the foundation for its admission was provided by a ?qualified witness? familiar with the record-keeping procedures of the database

Nature of Case: Class action arising from alleged violations of Ohio Mortgage Act and common law violations of fiduciary duty

Electronic Data Involved: Database report

Key Insight: Stating that ?authenticity is established by proof that the offered evidence is genuine and that there has been no tampering with it,? and that ?the foundation necessary to establish these elements may differ according to the evidence,? court found computer disk containing instant messages was properly authenticated and admitted into evidence where ?both victims testified they had engaged in instant messaging with defendant,? where an investigator testified that he had retrieved the messages from defendant?s computer, where MySpace ?explained the messages?had been exchanged by users of the accounts created by the defendant and the victims,? and where his wife recalled seeing such conversations on defendant?s computer

Nature of Case: Criminal

Electronic Data Involved: Disk containing instant messages