In In Re Estate of Good, 2013 IL App (2d) 120875-U, the Second District strictly construed the business records hearsay exception and held that a single-page spreadsheet (the “Spreadsheet”), prepared specifically for litigation by one of the parties from various print and electronic sources, didn’t satisfy the business records admissibility rules.
Facts: The plaintiff real estate auction company sued its deceased founder’s estate alleging the founder misappropriated company funds totalling about $1.5M over a multi-year period. Good, ¶ 4. The Plaintiff’s key piece of evidence – the Spreadsheet – was prepared specifically for the litigation and supposedly summarized various company financial records and itemized the amounts decedent allegedly took from the company.
The trial court granted the defendant estate’s summary judgment motion on all complaint counts.
Held: Affirmed.
Q: Why?
A: The Spreadsheet was inadmissible hearsay under the prevailing business records rules:
– Evidence which is inadmissible at trial is not admissible in support of or opposition to summary judgment motion;
– Illinois Evidence Rule 803(6) provides that “records of regularly conducted activity” are exceptions to the hearsay rule as long as they consist of a record or data compilation in any form made at or near the time from information transmitted by someone with knowledge if (a) kept in course of regularly conducted business activity and (b) if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make the record or data compilation;
– A business records proponent must also lay a foundation for the records. To authenticate a document, the party must offer evidence that shows the document is what the party claims it to be;
– A business record’s evidence foundation requires proof that the record (1) was made in regular course of business and (2) made at or near the time of the event or occurrence;
– The foundation for admitting business records can come via affidavit or trial testimony of a records custodian or other person familiar with the business and its mode of operation;
– A summary print-out prepared specifically for trial can satisfy business records rule (and be admissible) IF the underlying data on which the summary is based are (i) kept in regular course of business, (ii) the data was entered contemporaneous to the event, and (iii) there’s nothing to indicate the source of the information is untrustworthy.
Application:
The Spreadsheet didn’t satisfy the business records exception. First, it was mathematically inaccurate: the numbers didn’t match up. Also, plaintiff’s witnesses admitted in depositions that Spreadsheet was cobbled together from different electronic and printed sources – but they couldn’t specifically identify the sources. ¶¶ 67-70.
Also, the Spreadsheet wasn’t itself a business record: it was a “one-shot” summary document prepared for the summary judgment motion at the direction of a plaintiff and was “essentially created from scratch.” ¶ 70.
The Court also held that plaintiff failed to lay a proper foundation for the other financial documents (aside from the Spreadsheet) to support its claims.
The Court pointed to the records custodian’s deposition testimony where he couldn’t specifically identify any documents that supported plaintiff’s damage claims and offered only vague testimony about check requests and invoices that he supposedly reviewed. ¶ 74.
Take-aways:
Good illustrates that numerical accuracy is important when seeking summary judgment on damage claims.
A summary of damages document can meet the business records test – but only if the underlying data is regularly recorded and entered by someone with knowledge of the recorded event.
Good also shows that it’s vital for a deponent (or affiant) to sufficiently identify and explain the underlying data that underlies a damages summary. It’s clear that the conflicting testimony from plaintiff’s agents concerning the underlying Spreadsheet information played an important rule in the Court excluding plaintiff’s evidence.