Opinion ID: 1360544
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Page From Federal District Court Case Is Hearsay.

Text: Surgidev's third contention is that the trial court improperly admitted into evidence a page of a published opinion from a different case involving Surgidev, Surgidev Corp. v. Eye Technology, Inc., 648 F.Supp. 661, 674 (D.Minn.1986). Eye Technology involved a dispute between Surgidev and a former sales manager who switched companies. At issue in the case before us is a statement taken from the facts of the Eye Technology opinion and attributed to Dennis Grendahl, President of Surgidev. Grendahl is reported in Eye Technology to have said, Fitz, you've got a hundred thousand [Style 10] lenses on the shelf. Go sell them. Surgidev argues that both Grendahl's statement and the page from the Eye Technology case in which it is found are hearsay. The statement itself is not hearsay because it is an admission by a party-opponent, SCRA 1986, 11-801(D)(2)(d) (Repl. Pamp.1994), and it is relevant to the issue of punitive damages to show that Surgidev aggressively pushed the lens despite knowing of the dangers. However, the page of the opinion containing the statement is hearsay. It is hearsay because Plaintiffs are offering the federal district court's account of what Grendahl said as proof that Grendahl made that statement. See SCRA 1986, 11-801(C) (Repl.Pamp.1994). Plaintiffs attempt to avoid this hearsay problem by suggesting that the trial court took judicial notice of the page in question. It is unclear on what basis the trial court relied in admitting the page into evidence. However, a page from a published opinion is not a proper subject for judicial notice nor does it fall within a hearsay exception. An excerpted page of facts from a district court opinion is, at best, somewhat analogous to a trial court's findings of facts. Such findings are not the proper subject for taking judicial notice. In United States v. Jones, 29 F.3d 1549, 1553 (11th Cir.1994), the court outlined the limitations on using judicial notice for court orders. [A] court may take judicial notice of a document filed in another court `not for the truth of the matters asserted in the other litigation, but rather to establish the fact of such litigation and related filings.' Accordingly, a court may take notice of another court's order only for the limited purpose of recognizing the judicial act that the order represents or the subject matter of the litigation. Id. (citation omitted) (quoting Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Rotches Pork Packers, Inc., 969 F.2d 1384, 1388 (2d Cir.1992)); see also M/V Am. Queen v. San Diego Marine Constr. Corp., 708 F.2d 1483, 1491 (9th Cir.1983) (As a general rule, a court may not take judicial notice of proceedings or records in another cause so as to supply, without formal introduction of evidence, facts essential to support a contention in a cause then before it.). The Jones court went on to examine whether judicial findings fell within the public records exception to the hearsay rule discussed above. It concluded that judicial findings of fact in a court's order in a previous case are not admissible in another case under Rule 803(8)(C). Jones, 29 F.3d at 1554. The court reasoned that the drafters intended Rule 803(8)(C) to apply to findings of agencies and offices of the executive branch, not to judicial findings. Id.; see also Nipper v. Snipes, 7 F.3d 415, 417-18 (4th Cir.1993) (holding that judicial findings are hearsay not admissible under Rule 803(8)(C)). We agree with the federal courts and hold that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the page from the Eye Technology case into evidence. However, the error was harmless. Although the facts from the Eye Technology opinion could not be introduced as evidence, they could properly serve as a basis for deposing Grendahl on those matters. In response to Plaintiffs' questions at his deposition, Grendahl discussed the matters in the page from the Eye Technology opinion regarding the declining sales of the Style 10 and the departure of Mr. Fitzsimmons from Surgidev. When asked if he ever said: Fitz, you've got a hundred thousand [Style 10] lenses on the shelf. Go sell them, Grendahl gave an equivocal response. He acknowledged that he may have made the statement and then went on to explain the surrounding circumstances in an attempt to diffuse any negative implications arising from such a statement. Given his response, it was within the jury's province to weigh Grendahl's equivocation and evaluate whether he did in fact make the statement at issue. Cf. Franklin v. Duckworth, 530 F.Supp. 1315, 1319-20 (N.D.Ind. 1982) (equivocal response treated as tacit admission for hearsay purposes), aff'd, 714 F.2d 148 (7th Cir.1983). Accordingly, because the facts contained in the page from the Eye Technology case were already properly before the jury prior to the introduction of the page itself, admission of the page into evidence was harmless error.