Rock v. Huffco Gas & Oil Co.
922 F.2d 272 (1991)
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Rule of Law:
Out-of-court statements attributing fault for an injury, even if made to a physician or recorded in a business record, are inadmissible hearsay if they are not reasonably pertinent to medical diagnosis or treatment and lack circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness.
Facts:
- Richard D. Rock was an employee of Offshore Food Service, Inc., providing catering to offshore drilling platforms.
- On July 13, 1987, while on a Huffco Petroleum Corporation platform, Rock claimed he sprained his ankle when his foot fell through a rusted step. There were no witnesses.
- Rock reported the incident to supervisors, who created an accident report based on his account.
- On August 26, 1987, while on a rig owned by Dual Drilling Company, Rock claimed he re-injured his ankle by slipping in grease. A coworker, Barry Breaux, was present but did not see the fall.
- Breaux later stated that Rock had told him beforehand of a plan to fake an accident.
- Another coworker, Carl Trahan, stated that Rock later told him he had staged the slip-and-fall accident to "get some money out of it."
- Rock related the story of both incidents to his treating physicians, Dr. A. Delmar Walker and Dr. Fritz J. Rau, as part of his medical history.
- Rock developed venous insufficiency in his leg, which worsened over time, and he died from a heart attack on December 12, 1988.
Procedural Posture:
- Richard D. Rock initially filed a Jones Act claim against Huffco, Dual, and others, which was dismissed.
- After Rock's death, his surviving family members substituted themselves as plaintiffs and filed negligence claims in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
- Defendants Huffco Petroleum Corporation and Dual Drilling Company filed separate motions for summary judgment, arguing the plaintiffs had no admissible evidence.
- The district court ordered the plaintiffs to tender all evidence and identify the basis for its admissibility.
- The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, ruling that all of the plaintiffs' key evidence was inadmissible hearsay.
- The plaintiffs (appellants) appealed the district court's judgment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
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Issue:
Do out-of-court statements made by a deceased employee to his doctors, supervisors, and family members describing the cause and fault of his injuries fall within the exceptions to the hearsay rule under the Federal Rules of Evidence?
Opinions:
Majority - Thornberry, J.
No. The deceased employee's out-of-court statements are inadmissible hearsay because they do not satisfy the requirements of any relevant exception. The court reasoned that each of the plaintiffs' arguments for admissibility failed. First, under the medical diagnosis exception (FRE 803(4)), Rock's statements attributing fault—i.e., the rusted step and the grease—were not reasonably pertinent to his diagnosis or treatment. The doctors testified they only needed to know that his ankle was twisted, not the specific details of a defective step or grease on the floor. Second, the accident reports and medical records were not admissible under the business records exception (FRE 803(6)) because they contained 'hearsay within hearsay'; the source of the information, Rock, was not acting in the regular course of his business when he made the statements. Third, the statements were not admissible as admissions by a party-opponent (FRE 801(d)(2)) because the supervisors merely recorded Rock's account and did not adopt it as the company's own. Finally, Rock's statements to family and others were not admissible under the residual exceptions (FRE 803(24) and 804(b)(5)) because they lacked the necessary 'circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness,' especially given the evidence that Rock had a motive to fabricate his story.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces a strict application of the hearsay rule and its exceptions, emphasizing the foundational requirement of trustworthiness. It clarifies that the medical diagnosis exception (FRE 803(4)) does not typically cover statements attributing fault, as these are not considered 'reasonably pertinent' to treatment. The case also highlights the 'hearsay within hearsay' doctrine, underscoring that for a business record containing an outsider's statement to be admissible, the outsider's statement must itself fall under a hearsay exception. This ruling makes it significantly more difficult for a plaintiff's case to survive summary judgment when it relies entirely on the self-serving, out-of-court statements of a deceased person.
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