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Hinte v. Echo12/10/1998
pon in a systematic conduct of such business, are accurate and trustworthy." Weis v. Weis (1947), 147 Ohio St. 416, 425-426, 34 O.O. 350, 354, 72 N.E.2d 245, 250. In laying a foundation, the Ohio Supreme Court in State v. Davis (1991), 62 Ohio St.3d 326, 342, 581 N.E.2d 1362, 1377, held, "the testifying witness must possess a working knowledge of the specific record-keeping system that produced the document."
In the present case, we find that the testimony of appellee's witness and employee, Jonathan Salvatini, was insufficient to authenticate the Echo blade specifications for purposes of admission into evidence under Evid.R. 803(6). Salvatini was, at best, only able to testify that the documents came to him "in the normal and usual course of business" a few weeks before trial. Salvatini later testified that the documents had not, in fact, come to him in the normal and usual course of business, but rather as part of his preparation for trial. Salvatini testified that he was not an engineer, and he offered no testimony regarding the circumstances of formulation and creation of the engineering specifications, who was responsible for the drawings, and what their application, if any, had been to the production process. Salvatini's testimony did not establish that these were the only engineering specifications for Echo brush-cutting blades, or whether they were controlling during the interval in which Echo might have produced blades that would have been purchased under the circumstances outlined by Klamfoth in his testimony for appellant. "A person who has no personal knowledge of the source of the records sought to be entered into evidence is nosqualified to identify the records for purposes of having the records admitted." State v. O'Neill (Mar. 24, 1992), Franklin App. No. 91AP-369, unreported, 1992 WL 63308.
We accordingly find that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the Echo blade specifications because the absence of a proper foundation rendered the documents inadmissible under Evid.R. 803(6), and the lack of specificity with respect to date, scope, and application of the engineering specifications to the blade production process deprived the engineering specifications of the required relevance for admissibility.
We now turn to appellee's contention that, regardless of their admissibility under the Rules of Evidence, appellant had previously stipulated to admission of the engineering specifications. When appellant first objected to admission of the engineering specifications after Amrein's testimony, it was on the basis that Amrein was an expert hired for trial purposes and not an Echo employee and that he could not authenticate the Echo engineering specifications. Additionally, appellant argued that Amrein was relying upon the engineering specifications prior to their having been authenticated and admitted pursuant to another appropriate witness's testimony. The following exchange then occurred on the record:
"MR. BRUNN: Your Honor, about a week or two ago I prepared--well, first of all, Mr. Leeseberg was furnished with about almost one half of this drawing through discovery requests, drawing of the blade was given to him, he did not request the legend which was not. That's all over the record from my motion for summary judgment. It's been discussed here, there, everywhere, also in the deposition taken previously of Mr. Amrein.
"Next, I prepared a Defendant's exhibit list which I submitted to opposing counsel at the deposition of Dr. Wroble, and he at that time asked me if I would stipulate to all of his medical records, et cetera, which I agreed to do, and I said, would you stipulate to my exhibit list, which he agreed to do at that time.
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