Opinion ID: 660188
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: admissibility of the accident book

Text: 44 The Accident Book is a spiral notebook which was kept by employees of Markoff's practice. Console App. at 76-221. One of the columns on each page listed the date of an accident patient's first visit to Markoff's office. Id. The government used the Accident Book, id., and a chart summarizing relevant entries in the book, id. at 222-31, to establish that patient bills predating the date recorded in the Accident Book as the patient's first visit were fraudulent. 45 Rule 801 of the Federal Rules of Evidence defines hearsay as a statement, other than one made by a declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Rule 801 prohibits the admission of an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted because 46 the statement is inherently untrustworthy: the declarant may not have been under oath at the time of the statement, his or her credibility cannot be evaluated at trial, and he or she cannot be cross-examined. 47 Pelullo, 964 F.2d 193, 203 (3d Cir.1992). The Accident Book is hearsay because the entries are written out-of-court statements offered to prove the date when accident patients first visited the Markoff office. 48 Console and Curcio argue that the district court in the second trial erred by admitting the Accident Book under the business record exception to the hearsay rule. Fed.R.Evid. 803(6). 11 This exception for Records of Regularly Conducted Activity authorizes the admission of: 49 [a] memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, 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, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness, unless the source of information or the method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. 50 The appellants argue that the Accident Book was inadmissible hearsay because the government did not produce a witness qualified to give the foundation testimony required by Rule 803(6) and thus failed to introduce the foundation evidence required for the admission of the Accident Book as a business record. Console Br. at 18-27; Curcio Br. at 34-39, 43. They also argue that even if the Accident Book qualified as a business record, it was inadmissible under Rule 803(6) because the method or circumstances of [its] preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. Id. at 27-31. We exercise plenary review over the district court's interpretation of the Federal Rules of Evidence, but review a ruling based on a permissible interpretation of a rule for abuse of discretion. United States v. Furst, 886 F.2d 558, 571 (3d Cir.1989) (citing In re Japanese Elec. Prods. Antitrust Litig., 723 F.2d 238, 265 (1983), rev'd on other grounds sub nom. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986)), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1062, 110 S.Ct. 878, 107 L.Ed.2d 961 (1990). See also Petruzzi's IGA v. Darling-Delaware Co., 998 F.2d 1224, 1237 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 554, 126 L.Ed.2d 455 (1993). 51 Rule 803(6) does not require the foundation evidence for the admission of a business record to be provided by the record's custodian. Instead, the rule authorizes parties to elicit the evidence from any other qualified witness. Fed.R.Evid. 803(6). We have recognized that the term other qualified witness should be construed broadly, and that a qualified witness  'need not be an employee of the [record-keeping] entity so long as he understands the system.'  Pellulo, 964 F.2d at 201 (quoting 4 Jack B. Weinstein & Margaret A. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence p 803(6), at 803-178). Thus, a qualified witness only need have familiarity with the record-keeping system and the ability to attest to the foundational requirements of Rule 803(6). Id. at 201-02. The foundation requirements to which a qualified witness must attest are: 52 (1) [that] the declarant in the records had knowledge to make accurate statements; (2) that the declarant recorded statements contemporaneously with the actions which were the subject of the reports; (3) that the declarant made the record in the regular course of the business activity; and (4) that such records were regularly kept by the business. 53 Furst, 886 F.2d at 571 (citing Rule 803(6)). 54 The district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the Accident Book and the summary chart derived from it. Sharon Campbell, the witness through whom the Accident Book was introduced into evidence, was a qualified witness. Markoff employed her for seven years as a file clerk, a therapist, a receptionist, and a clerk in the legal department. Govt.App. at 971-72. Her testimony indicates that through her work, she became familiar with the office record-keeping system and the various forms and documents regularly kept by the office. Govt.App. at 972-80, 990-95; Console App. at 237-53, 272-75, 306-12. Campbell's familiarity with the office record-keeping system enabled her to attest to each of the four foundation requirements for the admission of the Accident Book as a business record. 55 Campbell testified that her mother, who also was a Markoff employee, first created the book in 1980 to organize the legal department by providing a record of certain key dates including: the date of the patient's accident; the date of the patient's first visit to Markoff's office; and the dates on which the legal department sent certain documents to the patient's attorney. Console App. at 238-44; 306-08. Campbell also testified that the office receptionist generally entered the date of a patient's first visit when the patient came in or at the end of the receptionist's shift. She then identified the Accident Book entries that she had made and those that her mother had made. Id. at 245-47. Finally, Campbell testified that while she was employed in the legal department of the Markoff practice, she relied on the Accident Book and inserted information in the book when something was overlooked. Id. at 249-53, 310-12. Based on this experience, she concluded that the Accident Book was 85 to 95 percent accurate. Id. at 310. 56 Campbell's testimony satisfied the foundation requirements of Rule 803(6) because it demonstrate[d] that the records [in the Accident Book] were made contemporaneously with the act the documents purport[ed] to record by someone with knowledge of the subject matter, that they were made in the regular course of business, and that such records were regularly kept by the business. Pelullo, 964 F.2d at 201. The government also called three other employees of the Markoff office who had made entries in the Accident Book, and their testimony regarding the book corroborated Campbell's. Console App. at 324-33, 349-55, 369-75. Furthermore, although the evidence indicates that the Accident Book was not completely accurate, the circumstances of its production indicate that it was sufficiently reliable to constitute a business record. 57 Finally, the appellants' argument that the Accident Book was inadmissible under Rule 803(6) because the employees who made entries in the Accident Book and in other business records used to fill in omissions in the Accident Book relied on information provided by patients lacks merit. Rule 803(6) does not require that the person transmitting the recorded information be under a business duty to provide accurate information. United States v. Patrick, 959 F.2d 991, 1001 (D.C.Cir.1992). Instead, it is sufficient if it is shown that ... [the] standard practice was to verify the information provided, id., 12 or that the information transmitted met the requirements of another hearsay exception, Fed.R.Evid. 805. See Michael H. Graham, Federal Practice and Procedure: Federal Rules of Evidence Sec. 6757, at 643 (1992). 58 In this case, there was testimony indicating that the existing file of someone who was not a new patient was retrieved and forwarded to Markoff, and no new medical history chart was prepared. Console App. at 327, 373. This procedure indicates that when the receptionist did not have personal knowledge of whether a patient's visit was his or her first, there was a process for ascertaining this information. Moreover, a patient's statement that he or she is visiting a doctor for the first time satisfies the requirements of another hearsay exception, Rule 803(4), which provides that [s]tatements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment and describing medical history are not excluded by the hearsay rule. See Wilson v. Zapata Off-Shore Co., 939 F.2d 260, 271-72 (5th Cir.1991). During oral argument, Console argued at length that the information obtained from the patients for the Accident Book was only significant for billing purposes, and thus was in itself hearsay, which in view of Fed.R.Evid. 805 was inadmissible. The record indicates, however, that the information taken from the patient for the Accident Book was given to Markoff for use when he saw the patient. Console App. at 324-25. Indeed, at the trial Console did not even cite Fed.R.Evid. 805 to object to the Accident Book on the ground that it contained [h]earsay included within hearsay so that the included hearsay itself was required to conform to an exception to the hearsay rule. Rather, his objection was general. 13 Overall we are satisfied that the circumstances of the Accident Book's creation and the source of its contents, i.e., patients and business records created based on the personal knowledge of Markoff's employees and patients, provide sufficient indicia of trustworthiness to satisfy the business record exception. 14 59 The appellants analogize this case to Pelullo and Furst, Console Br. at 19-21, Curcio Br. at 35-36, 38-39, two cases in which we held that the foundation requirements of Rule 803(6) had not been satisfied. But this case is distinguishable from Pelullo because in Pelullo the government sought to introduce bank-generated records of wire transfers through an FBI agent who did not purport to have familiarity with the record-keeping system of the banks, nor ... attest to any of the other requirements of Rule 803(6). Pelullo, 964 F.2d at 201-02. Furst is also distinguishable because in Furst neither witness called by the government [to lay a foundation for the purported business records] had any knowledge as to the accuracy of the information on which the ... documents were based or as to the knowledge of the persons who prepared the records, Furst, 886 F.2d at 572, and the government did not call a single employee to explain the origin of the data reflected in the documents, id. at 572 n. 18. Consequently it cannot be contended successfully on the basis of either Pelullo or Furst that the district court abused its discretion in the admission of the Accident Book and the summary chart based on it. 15