## Facts

- Dallas County, Alabama owned the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma and held insurance policies covering loss caused by “fire or lightning.”
- On July 7, 1957, the courthouse clock tower leaned, made cracking noises, collapsed, and fell into the courtroom, causing over $100,000 in damage.
- The County claimed the collapse was caused by a lightning strike on July 2, 1957, relying on charred debris and testimony (including a toxicologist) attributing the charring to lightning.
- The insurers denied lightning causation and asserted the tower failed from structural weaknesses, deterioration, design/construction defects, and added load from remodeling and air-conditioning.
- To explain the charring as unrelated to 1957, the insurers offered a June 9, 1901 local newspaper article reporting a fire in the courthouse tower/roof while the building was under construction.
- The County objected that the article was hearsay and did not qualify as a business record, ancient document, or any recognized hearsay exception.
- The district court admitted the article; the jury returned a verdict for the insurers.

## Issues

1. Whether a 1901 newspaper article reporting a courthouse fire was admissible to prove the truth of the reported fire, despite being hearsay and not fitting a traditional hearsay exception.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment for the insurers.
- It held the newspaper article was admissible in the circumstances.
- The court concluded the article was sufficiently necessary, trustworthy, relevant, and material to be received, even without a “tagged” hearsay exception.
- The court treated admissibility as within the trial judge’s sound discretion on these facts.

## Legal Principles

- Hearsay rules are not absolute; exceptions rest chiefly on necessity (unavailability of better evidence) and trustworthiness (reliability guarantees).
- Where an event occurred so long ago that reliable eyewitness testimony is impractical, a contemporaneous local newspaper report may satisfy necessity.
- Trustworthiness may be supported when the reported event is publicly observable and widely known in the community, with no apparent motive to falsify and an expectation of prompt correction if wrong.
- A court may admit highly probative hearsay outside categorical exceptions when reliability and practical need are strong and the evidence is central to a material disputed fact.
- Admission of such evidence is reviewed with deference to the trial court’s evidentiary discretion.

## Conclusion

The court upheld admission of an old newspaper account of a courthouse fire to support an alternative explanation for charred debris, reasoning that the report’s practical necessity and indicia of reliability justified receiving it as evidence even though it did not fit a standard hearsay exception.


Dallas County v. Com. Union Assurance Co., 286 F.2d 388 (5th Cir. 1961)