Opinion ID: 1467960
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Carbon Copy of Letter

Text: At trial the presiding justice allowed in evidence Graybar's file copy of a letter that according to his trial testimony Nicholas sent to Sawyer only five days after the September 18 meeting. In that letter Graybar's financial manager recited as fact that Sawyer had on September 18 personally guaranteed Pine Tree's debt incurred for material shipped to it by Graybar, including that for the New England Telephone project. [1] Sawyer, who claims never to have received the Graybar letter, contends that the best evidence rule, M.R.Evid. 1002, bars the admission of the carbon copy. The presiding justice concluded that the copy came within an exception to the rule requiring an original, and we find no error in his decision. The contents of a writing may be proved by evidence other than the original document itself, if the original has been lost or destroyed, M.R.Evid. 1004(1), or if the original is in the hands of the party against whom the copy is offered and that party after notice has failed to produce the original, M.R.Evid. 1004(3). It is within the discretion of the trial judge to decide whether an exception to the best evidence rule applies in a given instance. His decision is reviewable only for an abuse of that discretion. See State v. Williams, 395 A.2d 1158, 1162-63 (Me.1978); Field & Murray, Maine Evidence § 1004.0, at 272 (1976). No such abuse of discretion is shown here. The trial testimony established a sufficient foundation of transmission of the letter through the mails. By that testimony, the letter was addressed to Sawyer and placed in the mail according to Graybar's usual practices. Evidence that a letter was mailed raises a presumption of receipt by the addressee. Perry v. Park Street Motor Corp., 127 Me. 365, 368, 143 A. 274, 275 (1928). Since defendant did not offer the original letter, there is thus a sufficient foundational basis for application of M.R.Evid. 1004(3). If, on the other hand, the trial justice chose to believe that Sawyer did not receive the letter, then he would have been justified in applying M.R. Evid. 1004(1). In neither case would there have been an abuse of discretion. The carbon copy of the September 23, 1980, letter thus was properly found to come within an exception to the best evidence rule. Even if the carbon copy was in a form to be admitted in evidence, Sawyer contends that the letter should have been excluded as self-serving hearsay. We reject that contention on alternative grounds. If Sawyer received the letter, it was properly admissible on the principle of adoptive admission. This court in Ross v. Reynolds, 112 Me. 223, 226, 91 A. 952, 953 (1914), had the following comment that is pertinent here: Such a letter is clearly admissible. Though in a sense self-serving, it is admissible because, if the charge contained in it is untrue, it is calculated to evoke a reply. If no reply is made, that fact, unexplained, may afford an inference that the charge is true. See M.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(B); Field & Murray, Maine Evidence § 801.5, at 194 (1976) (adoptive admission may arise from silence). Alternatively, the September 23, 1980, letter written by Graybar's representative who later testified at trial was admissible, under the last sentence of M.R.Evid. 801(d)(1), to rebut an express or implied charge against him of recent fabrication of his claim that Sawyer orally guaranteed the payment of Pine Tree's debt.