{"id":688,"date":"2014-08-04T23:51:23","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T23:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/?p=688"},"modified":"2023-01-11T14:42:54","modified_gmt":"2023-01-11T19:42:54","slug":"2-supreme-court-cautions-litigants-unauthenticated-documents-competent-evidence-worthy-consideration-summary-judgment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/trial\/2-supreme-court-cautions-litigants-unauthenticated-documents-competent-evidence-worthy-consideration-summary-judgment\/","title":{"rendered":"(2)  SUPREME COURT CAUTIONS LITIGANTS THAT UNAUTHENTICATED DOCUMENTS ARE NOT COMPETENT EVIDENCE WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION ON SUMMARY JUDGMENT."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.courts.ri.gov\/Courts\/SupremeCourt\/Opinions\/13-184.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>McGovern v. Bank of America, N.A.<\/em>, No. 2013-184-Appeal<\/a>, the Rhode Island Supreme Court also reminded litigants that it had previously cautioned that unauthenticated documents are \u201cnot usually competent evidence worthy of consideration by the court in ruling on a motion for summary judgment.\u201d <em>Id<\/em>. at 10 (quoting <em>Superior Boiler Works, Inc. v. R.J. Sanders, Inc<\/em>., 711 A.2d 628, 632 n.3 (R.I. 1998)).<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court has taken a \u201cflexible and pragmatic approach\u201d to Rule 901 of the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence\u2019s requirement that evidence be authenticated. Under that approach, \u201ca document\u2019s authenticity [may] be established in any number of different ways.\u201d <em>Id<\/em>. (quoting <em>Rhode Island Managed Eye Care, Inc. v. Blue Cross &amp; Blue Shield of Rhode Island<\/em>, 996 A.2d 684, 691 (R.I. 2010)).<\/p>\n<p>When submitting evidence in connection with a motion or opposition to summary judgment, authentication can be accomplished \u201c\u2018by submitting an affidavit of a person with personal knowledge of the documents who can attest to their authenticity and qualify them as admissible evidence.\u2019\u201d <em>Id<\/em>. at 10-11 (quoting <em>Superior Boiler Works, Inc<\/em>., 711 A.2d at 632 n.3)).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In McGovern v. Bank of America, N.A., No. 2013-184-Appeal, the Rhode Island Supreme Court also reminded litigants that it had previously cautioned that unauthenticated documents are \u201cnot usually competent evidence worthy of consideration by the court in ruling on a motion for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[35,14,91],"class_list":["post-688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trial","tag-rhode-island-superior-court-practice","tag-rhode-island-supreme-court","tag-summary-judgment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}