Opinion ID: 1685999
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: testimony of the social worker

Text: Ms. Horrar, an investigative social worker employed with the Child Protective Services of the Cabinet for Human Resources (hereinafter CHR) and assigned to the CACU, testified as a witness for the Commonwealth. Over a continuing objection by appellant's counsel, the trial court permitted Horrar to testify as to the contents of an interview she had conducted with A.C. in the investigation of A.C.'s case. Horrar, referring to a report she had prepared based on the interview, testified: Basically [A.C.] stated that her stepfather, Earl Alexander, had sexually abused her during the time that her mother was in the hospital having a baby. She stated that he had been drinking and that he had called her upstairs to the bedroom and that when she got up there, he shut the door and pushed a mattress up against it. She said that he instructed her to take off her clothes, which she did. And that, in her words, he put his thing in my thing. She stated that this was somewhat painful, and denied she had bleeding from this. She said that Mr. Alexander told her that if she told anybody about this, he would kill himself. She also made the statement to me, quote, he made me suck it. Basically she said that she did suck his penis and that some water came out of it. She stated that the reason she obeyed him was because she was somewhat afraid of him. She said that he had never done anything of this nature to her prior to this incident; however, she did tell me that when she was approximately five years old, that she had been sexually abused by a grandfather and an uncle when the family lived in Cumberland County. The child also told me that she had told her mother about this incident and that when her mother returned from the hospital, she spanked her with a belt and told her that she was never to tell anybody else about this incident. The trial judge ruled Horrar's testimony admissible pursuant to Drumm v. Commonwealth, Ky., 783 S.W.2d 380 (1990), under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. We reverse on this issue because such testimony does not qualify under the business records exception to the hearsay rule, and even if it did qualify, would still be inadmissible. Before a record is admissible under the business record exception to the hearsay rule it must meet certain requirements. [1] These requirements are summarized in Lawson, The Kentucky Evidence Law Handbook, 2d ed., § 8.65(B) as follows: Regular Business Entries: A record (memorandum, report, documents, etc.) of an act, event, condition, or diagnosis, is admissible to prove that act, event, condition or diagnosis if the record (i) constitutes an original entry, (ii) was made in the course of regularly conducted business activity, (iii) was made at or near the time of the phenomenon which it represents, and (iv) was made under circumstances which do not indicate a lack of trustworthiness. In the case before us, we find the testimony of the social worker, as to A.C.'s statements, inadmissible because the report was not made under circumstances of trustworthiness. The lack of trustworthiness stems from the fact that the statements of A. C. in the record of the social worker were made by a party not under a business duty to report. In Buckler v. Commonwealth, Ky., 541 S.W.2d 935 (1976) we stated that a business record exception permitted the admission as competent evidence of record entries made in the regular course of duty in a business or profession by persons not having knowledge of the facts entered. Buckler at 937. (Emphasis added.) From this passage, it is clear that business records must be made pursuant to a business duty. The maker of the record and the person providing the information for the record must both be acting under a business duty. If, however, the supplier of the information does not act in the regular course, an essential link is broken; the assurance of accuracy does not extend to the information itself, and the fact that it may be recorded with scrupulous accuracy is of no avail. Commentary, Federal Rules of Evidence 803(6). The often-cited case of Johnson v. Lutz, 253 N.Y. 124, 170 N.E. 517 (1930) held a police report to be inadmissible as a business record because, while the officer was acting in the regular course and under a duty, the supplier of information was not. The situation presented before this Court is analogous to the inadmissibility of police reports under the business records exception. Police reports and the CHR report at issue are both investigatory reports. Horrar is an investigative social worker with CHR and assigned to the CACU of the Louisville Police Department. While Horrar had a duty to make a report of her interview with A.C., A.C. had no duty to impart any information to the social worker. Because A.C. was under no duty to report, the indicia of trustworthiness found in business records was not present. The social worker's report in the present case differs from the report in Cabinet for Human Resources v. E.S., Ky., 730 S.W.2d 929 (1987). In E.S. the social worker visited E.S.'s home on a regular basis. Her entries into the CHR records included her observations and conclusions as to what she saw on these visits. We held that: those entries in the case record made by the social worker which constitute statements of factual observations are admissible under the business entries exception to the hearsay rule, and those statements which express opinions and conclusions are not. E.S. at 932. A CHR record which contains observations made by social workers is admissible as a business entry. However, in the case presently before the court, the CHR record did not contain such observations. It contained the out-of-court statements of the alleged victim, who testified at trial. Other than a couple of quoted phrases, the entire entry was paraphrased by Horrar as to what A.C. had told her. When a record contains the interpretations of what the recorder believes the supplier of the information to have said, the level of trustworthiness decreases dramatically. The entries in the CHR record presented in this case are inadmissible under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. The language in Drumm was intended to be, and is, fully consistent with this opinion. Even if the CHR record qualified as a business entry, it would nevertheless be inadmissible. Had Horrar testified from memory, her testimony, being based entirely upon hearsay, would not have been admissible. Merely placing the same material in a written report does not automatically make it admissible. See Sharp v. Commonwealth, Ky., 849 S.W.2d 542 (1993). Neither is this evidence admissible under Hellstrom v. Commonwealth, Ky., 825 S.W.2d 612 (1992).