EVIDENCE - ADMISSIBILITY OF HOSPITAL RECORDS AS BUSINESS ENTRIES

Authors

Robert C. Lovejoy, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

As a defense to a suit on an insurance policy, the defendant insurer claimed that the plaintiff was intoxicated at the time of the fatal accident. Defendant offered in evidence a portion of the case record of the hospital to which plaintiff was taken after the accident, the record stating that he was "apparently well under influence of alcohol." Although it was duly authenticated under the federal statute permitting business entries to be used as evidence, this evidence was excluded by the trial court as being an observation rather than a diagnosis. Held, reversed. There was no basis for this distinction, the evidence was admissible as "a memorandum of any act, transaction, occurrence, or event" as defined in the federal statute. Reed v. Order of United Commercial Travelers, (C. C. A. 2d, 1941) 123 F. (2d) 252.

Recommended Citation

Robert C. Lovejoy, EVIDENCE - ADMISSIBILITY OF HOSPITAL RECORDS AS BUSINESS ENTRIES, 40 Mich. L. Rev. 1105 (1942).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol40/iss7/11