Legal Question in Business Law in California

Getting a magazine article entered as evidence

I'm in a limited civil law suit. I found a GREAT magazine article written for the W. Virginia Bar Assoc magazine by an ex-cheif justice of the W. Virginia Supreme Court. I was hoping to bring it in as evidence in support of my argument, but don't know how to best do that.

There is Federal evdence rules that allow this as ''Self-authenticated'', but I'm in state court. There's no California evidence rule to deal with publications specifically that I know of.

Should I use Judicial Notice ? Case Law ? or perhaps CCP 98 ?.... Any help will be GREATLY appreciated.

Steph-


Asked on 1/02/07, 1:30 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

Re: Getting a magazine article entered as evidence

You might want to look at California Evidence Code sections 1340 and 1341 which in effect exempt many published materials from the hearsay rule.

However, I think you are confusing evidence and legal argument. Your purpose in producing the article in court is probably not to establish the truth of a fact germane to your case, but to argue the law, using the West Virginia material to urge the California court to adopt, or at least consider, the West Virginia view and legal precedent.

You can do this without concern about the rules of evidence. You would not even have to be sworn in. Your only problem might be that if California has either statutes or well-established precedents covering the legal issues discussed by the West Virginia justice, you may have a hard time persuading a California trial judge to give much weight to conflicting case law or statutes of another jurisdiction.

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Answered on 1/02/07, 4:59 pm


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