A self-authenticating document, under the
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
of
evidence in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, is any
document
A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" o ...
that can be admitted into evidence at a trial without proof being submitted to support the claim that the document is what it appears to be. Several categories of documents are deemed to be self-authenticating:
#Certified copy of public or business records;
#Official publications of government agencies;
#Newspaper articles;
#Trade inscriptions, such as labels on products;
#Acknowledged documents (wherein the signer also gets a paper
notarized
A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems.
A notary, while a legal professional, is disti ...
); and
#
Commercial paper
Commercial paper, in the global financial market, is an unsecured promissory note with a fixed maturity of rarely more than 270 days. In layperson terms, it is like an " IOU" but can be bought and sold because its buyers and sellers have some ...
under the
Uniform Commercial Code
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), first published in 1952, is one of a number of Uniform Acts that have been established as law with the goal of harmonizing the laws of sales and other commercial transactions across the United States through U ...
.
Although most
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
s have evidentiary rules similar to the
Federal Rules of Evidence
First adopted in 1975, the Federal Rules of Evidence codify the evidence law that applies in United States federal courts. In addition, many states in the United States have either adopted the Federal Rules of Evidence, with or without local v ...
, the
California Evidence Code
The California Evidence Code (abbreviated to Evid. Code in the California Style Manual) is a California code that was enacted by the California State Legislature on May 18, 1965 to codify the formerly mostly common-law law of evidence. Section 351 ...
diverges significantly from the FRE in that it does not treat trade inscriptions as self-authenticating.
[See ''Dicola v. White Brothers Performance Prods.'']
158 Cal. App. 4th 666
(2008) (holding that product label was hearsay). This means that if a defendant does not stipulate to the authenticity and accuracy of a trade inscription, and the plaintiff lacks testimony from percipient witnesses who can establish a complete
chain of custody
Chain of custody (CoC), in legal contexts, is the chronological documentation or paper trail that records the sequence of custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of materials, including physical or electronic evidence. Of particula ...
leading back to the defendant, then the plaintiff must use
expert testimony
An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...
to establish the authenticity of the inscription ''and'' to get around the obvious
hearsay
Hearsay evidence, in a legal forum, is testimony from an under-oath witness who is reciting an out-of-court statement, the content of which is being offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. In most courts, hearsay evidence is inadmiss ...
issue (i.e., to establish, based on common practice within the trade, that the product is what the inscription says it is).
References
Evidence law
{{US-law-stub