CPLR § 4518 Business Records: The New York Practitioner's Guide

Last reviewed: September 2026 — spreadsheet case link and narrow statutory/form qualifications checked; no claim of a complete new citator review.

Key Takeaways

• CPLR § 4518(a) is New York’s business-records exception to the hearsay rule. The foundation has three elements: the record was made in the regular course of business, it was the regular course of that business to make the record, and the record was made at or about the time of the act or event recorded.
• The maker’s availability is irrelevant. A business record is admissible even though the person who prepared it could testify (Rodriguez v New York City Tr. Auth.).
• The witness’s lack of personal knowledge of the underlying facts goes to weight, not admissibility — but the witness must actually know how the records were generated, not merely recognize them.
• Records created by a different entity are the modern battleground: the proponent must show the records were incorporated into and relied upon in its own business (Carothers v Geico and its progeny), not merely received and forwarded.
• Police reports need an admissibility foundation. Certification is one route; a report and its embedded statements raise separate evidentiary questions.
• Not everything needs a 4518 foundation. Contracts, assignments of benefits, declaration pages, and letters offered only to prove they were mailed are non-hearsay and need only authentication.

What CPLR § 4518 Says

CPLR 4518(a) requires a record made in the regular course of business, a regular business practice of making that record, and creation at the event’s time or within a reasonable time afterward.

The statute defines business broadly, including professions and occupations. It distinguishes the foundation for admission from circumstances affecting the record’s evidentiary weight.

Its personal-knowledge provision refers to the record’s maker. It does not excuse the proponent from establishing how the record was generated and maintained.

A tangible exhibit of an electronic record must accurately represent it. The court may consider storage, maintenance and retrieval methods when assessing that requirement.

CPLR § 4518(c) provides a second path for certain categories of records — hospital records, records of government departments and agencies, and similar materials — which may be admitted by certification in lieu of a live foundation witness. The certification route is procedural shorthand, not a relaxation of the underlying business-records requirements.

The exception rests on a reliability rationale: businesses depend on the accuracy of their own routine records, so records made under a business duty carry circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness that excuse the absence of cross-examination. Where that business duty is missing — a bystander’s statement in a police report, a printout nobody entered in the regular course of business — the rationale collapses and so does admissibility.

How New York Courts Apply CPLR § 4518

This firm has been writing case notes on § 4518 since 2009. What follows synthesizes that body of decisions, with links to the underlying analyses.

The preparer’s availability is irrelevant: Rodriguez

The decision that anchors this guide is Rodriguez v New York City Tr. Auth., 2011 NY Slip Op 01258 (2d Dept. 2011):

“We agree with the defendant that the Supreme Court erred in precluding it from introducing into evidence two accident reports. The accident reports were made in the regular course of business and were admissible under CPLR 4518(a). A business record is admissible even though the person who prepared it is available to testify to the acts or transactions recorded.”

Rodriguez rejects a persistent misconception: that if the record’s creator can be produced, the record itself becomes inadmissible and live testimony must be substituted. The business-records exception provides an independent ground for admission, and the strategic choice about which witnesses to call remains with the parties. An opponent’s objection that “the person who made this is available” is simply not a basis for exclusion.

The foundation witness must know how the records were generated

The flip side: producing a witness is not enough. In V.S. Med. Servs., P.C. v Travelers Ins. Co., the Appellate Term excluded a plaintiff’s claim forms because its former employee “did not testify at all as to the generation of such claim forms.” Familiarity with what records say is not familiarity with how they are made.

The Appellate Term delivered the textbook statement of the rule in All Borough Group Med. Supply v Geico: a witness who was employed during the relevant period and could describe the office routine — that delivery receipts and claim forms were routinely and contemporaneously made — laid a sufficient foundation even though his testimony was “inartful,” and his lack of personal knowledge of particular transactions affected weight only.

The witness also need not work for the original record-maker in the corporate sense. In Yellow Book of N.Y. v Cataldo, an employee of the plaintiff’s successor-in-interest who was “fully familiar with the plaintiff’s record-keeping procedures and practices” properly authenticated the predecessor’s records.

Records made by someone else: the incorporation doctrine

The hardest-fought § 4518 territory is foundation for records created by a different entity. The leading New York treatment came out of no-fault litigation: Carothers v Geico, where a billing company’s witness could not authenticate the medical provider’s claim documents because the billing company “did not incorporate plaintiff’s records into its own records, but merely received, printed and mailed them.” Carothers overruled the lenient Pine Hollow “conduit” approach and installed a strict incorporation test: receipt is not incorporation; the records must be absorbed into and relied upon in the proponent’s own business.

The doctrine now runs through every corner of civil practice:

• Liquidation: In A & S Med. Supply v MVAIC, the Appellate Term held that the New York Liquidation Bureau could lay a foundation for a defunct insurer’s seized records because its claims examiners actively used those records to administer outstanding claims — incorporation and reliance, not mere custody.
• Foreclosure: In Bank of America v Brannon, the First Department accepted a servicer-side affidavit reciting familiarity with the plaintiff’s record-keeping systems and reliance on the loan file in the regular course of business — over a dissent that, on a technical reading of 4518(a), had the better of the argument on familiarity with the antecedent entity’s record-keeping.
• Assigned debt: In Portfolio Recovery Assoc. v Lall, the First Department let a debt buyer’s employee lay a foundation for the original creditor’s account statements and affidavit of sale based on the buyer’s reliance on those documents — no “special relationship” with the assignor required. (The Fourth Department’s Unifund CCR Partners v Youngman points the other way; the departmental split persists.)
• Criminal/forensic contexts: The Fourth Department’s decision discussed in our note on People v Jones excluded a bank-screen printout and database-search testimony where the People showed neither that the data was entered in the regular course of business nor that the witness was familiar with — and generally relied upon — the practices of the company that produced the records.

The through-line: the foundation witness must articulate familiarity with the producing entity’s practices plus routine reliance on the records. Conclusory custody is never enough; documented operational use usually is. First Department panels accept thinner affidavits than the Second Department — know your forum.

Police reports: foundation first, embedded statements second

The report and a statement recorded in it present separate hearsay questions. A party admission does not, by itself, supply the missing foundation for the report containing it.

Yassin v Blackman, 188 AD3d 62 (2d Dept 2020), rejected a report that was neither certified nor supported by another proper foundation. Certification was not described as the only possible method.

Even with an admissible report, identify the source and basis for admitting each embedded statement. An unidentified bystander’s account is not automatically usable merely because an officer recorded it.

Yassin concerned a report offered to support summary judgment. The court expressly left open the separate question of hearsay offered in opposition alongside other evidence.

The archive’s Hazzard note and 2020 discussion of Yassin provide the historical sequence. The proper lesson is to establish both evidentiary levels, not to treat every uncertified report identically.

CPLR 4518(c), government records, and the judicial-notice trap

Printouts from government websites occupy an awkward middle ground. In Throgs Neck Multicare v Mercury Cas. Co., the Appellate Term — following Dyer v 930 Flushing, LLC, 118 AD3d 742 — held that Department of State printouts are inadmissible unless certified under CPLR 4518(c), even though courts will take judicial notice of various items on government websites. Judicial notice and evidentiary admissibility are different doctrines, and the line between them remains unsettled. The practical answer is cheap insurance: certifying DOS records is easy, so do it.

When you do not need § 4518 at all

A recurring tactical error is fighting a 4518 battle over a document that is not hearsay:

• Documents with independent legal significance. An assignment of benefits, like a contract, “need only be authenticated” — no business-records foundation required (All Borough Group).
• Policy declaration pages. Part of the insurance contract; authentication plus, for electronic reproductions, a CPLR 4539 showing suffices (Brand Med. Supply v Infinity).
• Letters offered to show they were sent. EUO and IME scheduling letters offered to prove mailing, not the truth of their contents, are offered for a non-hearsay purpose (Sin Med. v Travelers). Courts nonetheless cite 4518 in mailing cases with some inconsistency.
• But proof of mailing itself has a foundation rule. Where mailing is proved through business records, the affiant must aver familiarity with the office’s standard mailing practices and procedures designed to ensure items are properly addressed and mailed — documentary exhibits alone failed in Bank of America v Wheatley.

Copies, summaries, and the best evidence rule

In 76-82 St. Marks, LLC v Gluck, the court rejected an incomplete guaranty copy. The proponent had not established the basis for using secondary evidence or satisfactorily identified an accurate reproduction.

The court also rejected a damages chart prepared for litigation. A litigation summary is not automatically a business record; its purpose, underlying sources and foundation must be examined.

Total Family v Mercury supplies a no-fault example: the spreadsheet foundation did not establish timely verification requests. Jason’s original note explains why he disagreed.

Practice Pointers

1. Script the foundation affidavit to the three elements — regular course, regular practice to make the record, contemporaneity — and add the affiant’s basis for knowing the office routine. Track the All Borough language.
2. For another entity’s records, plead incorporation, not custody. The affidavit must describe how the records were absorbed into the proponent’s business and how its personnel rely on them daily (Carothers, A & S v MVAIC).
3. Establish the report’s foundation. Certification may provide a permitted route for police or government records; identify the applicable provision and any alternative foundation.
4. Check embedded statements separately. Admission of the record does not automatically admit every statement in it for its truth. Identify a business duty or other applicable hearsay exception.
5. Do not lay a foundation you don’t need. Contracts, AOBs, and declaration pages are non-hearsay; over-lawyering invites foundation objections you could have mooted.
6. For mailing, the affiant must know the mailing procedure — not just attach the ledger (Wheatley).
7. Watch the departmental split on assignor/originator records (Portfolio Recovery vs. Unifund); your foundation burden is measurably heavier outside the First Department.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the foundation requirements for a business record under CPLR 4518(a)?

Three elements: the record was made in the regular course of business; it was the regular course of that business to make the record; and the record was made at or about the time of the act, transaction, occurrence, or event recorded. The foundation witness must be familiar with the record-keeping practices that generated the document, though the witness’s lack of personal knowledge of the underlying facts goes to weight, not admissibility.

Does the person who created the business record have to testify?

No. Under Rodriguez v New York City Tr. Auth., a business record is admissible even though the person who prepared it is available to testify. Foundation may be laid by any witness — or by affidavit or certification where permitted — who is familiar with the business’s record-keeping procedures.

Can a witness lay a CPLR 4518 foundation for records created by a different company?

Only under the incorporation doctrine. The proponent must show the records were incorporated into its own business and routinely relied upon — mere receipt, custody, or forwarding is insufficient under Carothers v Geico. Successor entities, loan servicers, liquidation bureaus, and debt buyers have all satisfied (and failed) this test depending on the quality of the reliance showing.

Are police accident reports admissible under CPLR 4518?

A report needs an admissibility foundation; certification is not the only possible route under CPLR 4518(a). Embedded statements also need their own basis for admission, such as a party admission or another hearsay exception.

Counsel-to-Counsel: Referrals and Co-Counsel

If you are litigating a CPLR § 4518 issue — a foundation fight on summary judgment, a trial objection you need preserved correctly, or an appeal turning on a business-records ruling — and want a second set of eyes, or want to hand the motion or appeal to someone who briefs these issues every week, the Law Office of Jason Tenenbaum, P.C. works with referring attorneys across New York: per-diem motion practice, appellate briefing and argument (1,000+ appeals), and co-counsel arrangements on no-fault, personal injury, and insurance coverage litigation. Referring counsel stay involved to the degree they want. Call (516) 750-0595 or use the contact form — attorney inquiries answered same day.

Related Reading

• Business records (CPLR 4518[a]) back to the Appellate Division
• No-fault prima facie case requires a business-record foundation: Carothers v GEICO
• Third-party billing records: the Appellate Term’s first application of Carothers
• Business records — when was the data entered and who could enter it?
• Policy exhaustion and the business records
• Legal Encyclopedia
• New York no-fault defense practice