Opinion ID: 492614
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Freeny Report

Text: 17 The statement in the Freeny report that Mrs. Rassoulpour was running down the escalator is hearsay under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(c) because it is an out-of-court statement admitted for the truth of the matter stated therein. Hearsay is inadmissible unless it falls within one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule. Fed.R.Evid. 802. 18 The Freeny report does not fit the exception for records of regularly conducted business activity (Fed.R.Evid. 803(6)) because at least one level of hearsay within it does not satisfy an exception to the hearsay rule. 2 See United States v. Baker, 693 F.2d 183, 188 (D.C.Cir.1982). There is absolutely no evidence that Ebling witnessed the accident. Indeed, the Ebling report implies that Ebling did not witness Mrs. Rassoulpour's fall. Thus the original source of the information was not Ebling. Someone, perhaps Officer Lee, may have told Ebling that Mrs. Rassoulpour was running down the escalator. There is insufficient evidence to find that the original source satisfies one of the hearsay exceptions, such as the business records exception or the excited utterances exception. Therefore, the statement that Mrs. Rassoulpour was running is inadmissible hearsay. Admitting this statement was not harmless: the statement was appellees' only evidence regarding the cause of the accident. 19 Appellants also argue that the statement should not have been admitted because it is unreliable. They focus on the fact that at a deposition three years before trial, Freeny testified that he could not remember who reported to him that Mrs. Rassoulpour had been running. Because the statement was inadmissible hearsay, the court need not reach this challenge.