Tag: s 79C

Find below a few short excerpts from (fairly) recent cases which considered issues relevant to s 79C(2a) Evidence Act 1906 (WA):

Zerjavic v Chevron [2020] WASCA 40 (in which a letter was found not to be a business record because it was a one-off document prepared by the business, rather than a document prepared in the ordinary course of that business):

‘The letter was a one-off piece of correspondence sent to the District Court in answer to a subpoena rather than a document prepared or used in the ordinary course of business for the purpose of recording any matter relating to the business. The primary judge was correct to reject the tender of the Sonic Health letter on the basis that it was not a business record.’ (at [146])

Collopy v CBA [2019] WASCA 97 (in which the point was made that s 79C(2a) allows for ‘a statement in a document that has been derived from a business record’ to be admitted, and that this description included screenshots of banking records):

‘… trial counsel objected to the admission of the screenshots on the basis that they were not admissible as business records because they had been prepared for the purposes of the litigation.

The screenshots themselves were not a ‘business record’ for the purposes of s 79C of the Evidence Act. They were, as Ms Lavater’s trial counsel observed, created in about October 2017 for the purposes of the trial. However, the information shown in the screenshots was derived from the Bank’s electronic business records in the manner described by Mr Kent. That is sufficient for the purposes of s 79C(2a)(a), which enables a statement in a document that has been derived from a business record to be admitted.’ (at [4]–[5])

Presilski v Shepherd [2021] WASC 100 (in which screenshots of Google Maps Timeline information fell under the s 79C(2a) business records exception):

‘… the Google Maps Timeline should be considered to have been generated by Google, from the underlying data recorded and stored by Google in its Google Maps system, in the ordinary course of its business of Google Maps, which, in the Google Maps Timeline functionality, tracks and registers the time and location of a user of a mobile telephone on a particular day. The appellant did not prepare the Google Maps Timeline, but rather accessed it…’ (at [143])