Court Opinion

ID: 9517376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:15:23.404357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:44:00.962859
License: Public Domain

*532Braucher, J.
(concurring in the result). I agree that the judgments should be reversed because part of the hospital record admitted over objection and without any limiting instruction did not relate to treatment or medical history. But I do not join in all that is said in the opinion. Our hospital records statute, G. L. c. 233, § 79, is separate from our general business records statute, G. L. c. 233, § 78.1 am not prepared to import into our statute a "general view” as to different statutes in other States, without some warrant in the text of our statute. See Commonwealth v. DeBrosky, 363 Mass. 718, 725 n.6 (1973). In particular, our hospital records statute "in effect provides an exception to the hearsay rule” for facts that "pertain to treatment and medical history.” Commonwealth v. Copeland, 375 Mass. 438, 442 (1978). I find in the statute no requirement, as to such facts, that there be some other applicable exception to the hearsay rule. Cf. Kelley v. Jordan Marsh Co., 278 Mass. 101, 110-111 (1932) (entries not relating to treatment or medical history). In my view the reliability of statements covered by the statute is left to the discretion of the trial judge by the explicit words of the statute.