Opinion ID: 781098
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Autopsy Report

Text: 12 Finally, Sosna argues that the District Court admitted improper hearsay testimony when it allowed into evidence certain statements of the pathologist regarding Richard Sosna's cause of death that were contained in the autopsy report. We disagree. The District Court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted the entire autopsy report into evidence under Rule 803(6) as a business record. It is of no avail for Sosna to argue that the statement that [t]he ischemia of the segment of small bowel and acute tubular necrosis of the kidneys was most likely secondary to DIC and hypotension prior to death was solely the opinion of the pathologist. Autopsy Rep. at 4. Rule 803(6) specifically speaks to, and makes admissible, records or reports 13 of acts, events, conditions, opinions, or diagnoses, made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, a person with knowledge, if kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity, and if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make the memorandum, report, record or data compilation. 14 Fed.R.Evid. 803(6). We conclude that the opinions of the pathologist contained in his autopsy report fit comfortably within Rule 803(6)'s confines.