Opinion ID: 459860
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admissibility of the Senate Report

Text: 9 CLPT maintains that admission of the Senate Interim Report as evidence of a national exclusion rate was prejudicial error. The trial court's admission of the materials is reviewed for abuse of discretion. M.A.P. Oil Co. v. Texaco Inc., 691 F.2d 1303, 1310 (9th Cir.1982). 10 Federal Rule of Evidence 803(8)(C) permits the admission of public reports made pursuant to authority granted by law, unless the sources of information or other circumstances indicate lack of trustworthiness. CLPT argues that this particular report lacks trustworthiness by virtue both of the nature of material compiled and of the manner in which the compilation occurred. 11 It might have been error for the trial judge to accept the Senate Report statistics as proof of a disputed fact and rely completely upon the report in deciding that the CLPT exclusion rate was unreasonably high. We agree with plaintiffs, however, that the report was not offered as proof of an acceptable exclusion rate, but instead as one source of corroborative evidence for the testimony of one of their experts. The record reveals that the purpose for which the trial court considered the report was well within the court's discretion. 12 Paragraph 18 of the district court Findings of Fact echoes the Senate Report's conclusion that the average national exclusion rate was 92.5%. 582 F.Supp. at 1314. But the trial court's conclusion that the CLPT rate of 94.3% was unusually high was not based solely on a comparison with that national average. The court said: In comparison to the average national forfeiture rate (92.5%) and on its face, an exclusion rate of 94.3% was unusually high. Id. at 1317 (emphasis in the original). Since both of plaintiffs' witnesses who testified on the question described 94.3% as unusually high, and CLPT did not rebut their testimony, CLPT has not shown that the trial court relied on the Senate Report to the prejudice of CLPT. Admission of the report was not an abuse of discretion.