Overview
The business records exception to the hearsay rule allows certain records to be admitted into evidence because businesses have strong incentives to keep accurate information about their operations. The Indiana case Ground v. State is used to illustrate the specific boxes that must be checked for bank records and similar documents to qualify under this exception, which mirrors Federal Rule of Evidence 803(6).
Rationale for the Business Records Exception
- Businesses depend on accurate records for routine decisions, such as ordering inventory (e.g., tubes of toothpaste, bars of soap).
- Records help businesses determine where they are making or losing money and how to adjust their practices.
- Because inaccurate records would harm the business itself, the law assumes businesses will not “lie to themselves,” similar to how patients are expected not to lie to their doctors.
- This presumed reliability underlies why properly documented business records are treated as sufficiently trustworthy to be admitted despite being hearsay.
Requirements for Admissibility of Business Records
- The record must be made by, or from information provided by, someone with personal knowledge of the matters recorded.
- The record must be kept in the ordinary course of the business’s regular activities.
- Making and maintaining the record must itself be part of the regular, ongoing business practice, not a one-off effort to document past events.
- There must be testimony or a certificate from the custodian of the records (or a qualified witness) verifying these points.
- The records must appear trustworthy on their face, with no obvious irregularities such as missing entries, multiple conflicting entries, or other features suggesting unreliability.
Ground v. State Case Details
- The prosecution sought to introduce bank records, including copies of checks and a signature card, to show that the defendant’s signature matched the person who signed fraudulent checks.
- A bank fraud investigator, acting as the custodian of records, submitted a certification stating that the documents were true copies, kept in the ordinary course of business, and provided by the bank customer (the defendant, Pamela Ground).
- The court found two problems:
- The statement did not affirm that the entries were made by someone with knowledge of the information recorded (though Indiana preserved a presumption covering this point from pre-rules law).
- More importantly, the investigator did not state that it was the bank’s regular, routine practice to create and keep these kinds of records in this way.
- Because the certification did not explain that these records were created and filed as part of the bank’s normal procedures, the court held that a key requirement of the business records exception was not satisfied and rejected the records.
Key Takeaways Regarding Business Records Admissibility
- To qualify under the business records exception, a custodian or certifying witness must explicitly confirm that:
- The records are created by someone with knowledge, and
- The creation and retention of such records is a regular, ordinary practice of the business.
- Even when records seem inherently reliable, failure to clearly cover each required element in testimony or certification can lead to exclusion of the evidence under the business records exception.