There are many situations in which business records may be helpful in pursuing a Buffalo personal injury lawsuit. For example, invoices from a contractor for maintenance of property may be useful in determining who is responsible for an injury.
While many records are not admissible in court without the person who prepared the document personally appearing to testify and be cross-examined regarding the content of the document, there are certain documents that fall under what is known as the “business record exception to the hearsay rule.” Documents that fall into this category may be used in court if they meet the following criteria.
Under section 4518(a) of the Civil Practice Law and Rules, a record may be admitted if it was made in the regular course of any business and that it was the regular course of such business to make it, at the time of the act, transaction, occurrence or event, or within a reasonable time thereafter.
This definition excludes records prepared by a business for the specific purpose of using them in litigation and records that were created long after some event for the purpose of allegedly documenting that event.
Just because a document appears to be admissible under this rule, however, does not necessary mean it is. There are other reasons a business record may be excluded from use in a personal injury lawsuit, and what is and what is not admissible often turns on the specific facts of each case.
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