With the advent of electronic discovery, emails and web pages are now common and fertile areas of discovery. However, until its 2014-2015 term, the Rhode Island Supreme Court had not addressed the means by which emails and web pages may be authenticated for introduction into evidence at trial.
In O’Connor v. Newport Hospital, 111 A.3d 317 (R.I. 2015), the Rhode Island Supreme Court was called upon to address this issue of first impression and, in doing so, concluded that the proponents of the evidence had failed to make the threshold showing necessary to authenticate the evidence at trial. Id. at 324-25.
The Supreme Court began its analysis with Rhode Island Rule of Evidence 901(a), which provides: “‘The requirement of authentication or identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is satisfied by evidence to support a finding that the matter in question is what the proponent claims.’” Id. at 323 (quoting R.I. R. Evid. 901(a)). While “authentication is not a high hurdle to clear,” it is well established that a trial justice must determine “whether there is enough support in the record to conclude that it is ‘reasonably probable’ that the evidence is what the offer proclaims it to be.” Id.
Authentication of Emails
Applying these standards, the Rhode Island Supreme Court held that an email may be authenticated in a number of different ways, including the following:
- Through direct evidence such as “the testimony of a witness with personal knowledge that the proffered exhibit is what it is claimed to be, such as the author or recipient of the email.” IdId. at 325citing RuRule 901(b)(1)
- Through circumstantial evidence such as the email’s “[a]ppearance, contents, substance, internal patterns, or other distinctive characteristics, taken in conjunction with circumstances.” Id.
- Through a forensic expert witness who is “able to trace an email back to the Internet address from which it originated.” Id.
In O’Connor, no attempt had been made to authenticate the email at issue through any of these means. Id. Rather, the email was introduced through a witness who was neither the sender nor the recipient of the email and who merely recited the identity of the purported sender of the email and summarized the email’s contents. Id. Thus, the Court held that the trial justice had abused his discretion by admitting the email into evidence. Id.
Authentication of Printouts of Web Pages
The Supreme Court also analyzed the means...
