## Facts

- Clifford J. Lewis, Jr. was employed by the Penn Central Transportation Company as a freight brakeman (“car dropper”) in the Morrisville, Pennsylvania yard.
- On October 26, 1969, Lewis was working with two boxcars that were to roll down a grade, and his job required him to ride the cars and use a manual hand brake (operated by a vertical brake wheel) to control speed so the cars would move safely into a standing cut of cars.
- Lewis climbed onto the lead car, positioned himself on the rear brake platform, and applied the hand brake to test it; he testified that the brake held during this test.
- After the cars were released, Lewis testified that when he attempted to apply the brake to slow the cars, the brake did not hold and the cars gained speed.
- Lewis jumped from the moving car and claimed serious knee injury and aggravation of a preexisting psychiatric condition that prevented his return to work.
- There were no eyewitnesses to the incident other than Lewis.
- Penn Central’s theory was that the hand brake was functioning and that Lewis either failed to set, or improperly set, a required brake handle and then panicked and jumped.
- At trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Penn Central offered two written records:
  - An injury (accident) report prepared by Campbell (a night trainmaster) under the supervision of Talbott (a day trainmaster), as part of Penn Central’s required reporting of employee accidents.
  - An equipment inspection report prepared after the accident by Campbell and Zuchero (a gang foreman), consistent with testimony that Penn Central’s practice required inspection of the equipment involved after every employee injury and a report of the results.
- The district court admitted both reports under the business-records exception to the hearsay rule, the jury returned a verdict for Penn Central and the other defendants, and judgment was entered for the defense.
- Lewis appealed, challenging (1) admission of the two reports, (2) an instruction allowing an inference about brake condition from evidence immediately before and after the incident, and (3) an instruction permitting the jury to consider a false answer on his employment application when judging credibility.

## Issues

1. Were Penn Central’s injury report and equipment inspection report admissible as business records, or were they excluded under the type of concern described in *Palmer v. Hoffman*?
2. Did the trial court err by instructing the jury that it could infer the brake’s condition at the time of the accident from evidence of its condition immediately before and immediately after the accident?
3. Did the trial court err by instructing the jury that it could consider Lewis’s false statement on his employment application when assessing his credibility?

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed the judgment for the defendants.
- The court held the injury report and the inspection report were properly admitted as business records and were not barred by *Palmer v. Hoffman*.
- The court held the jury instruction permitting an inference about the brake’s condition from evidence just before and just after the accident was proper.
- The court held the instruction allowing the jury to consider Lewis’s false employment-application answer in evaluating credibility was proper.

## Legal Principles

- Records made as part of a regular, routine reporting practice—especially when tied to required accident reporting and standard post-injury inspection procedures—may qualify as business records even though they relate to an accident and could later be used in litigation.
- *Palmer v. Hoffman* does not create a blanket rule excluding all accident-related reports; exclusion depends on whether the record’s preparation shows the kind of litigation-driven motive that makes the record unreliable.
- A jury may be told it is permitted (not required) to infer the condition of equipment at the time of an event from evidence of its condition immediately before and immediately after the event, where the timing supports that inference.
- A false statement on an employment application may be used to impeach a party-witness’s credibility, and a trial judge may instruct the jury that it may consider such a statement when deciding whether to believe the witness.

## Conclusion

In *Lewis v. Baker*, the Second Circuit upheld a defense verdict in a railroad employee’s injury action, ruling that Penn Central’s routinely prepared injury and inspection reports were admissible as business records (and did not fall within *Palmer v. Hoffman*’s reliability concern), that the jury could be instructed it may infer the brake’s condition at the time of the incident from evidence immediately before and after, and that the jury could consider Lewis’s false employment-application answer when judging his credibility.


Lewis v. Baker, 526 F.2d 470 (1975)