## Facts

- A nearly four-year-old child was injured after entering the yard of neighbors Kenneth and Jean Poos, where a young wolf, Sophie, was kept behind a chain-link fence and chained.
- Sophie belonged to Wild Canid Survival & Research Center, Inc. (the Center) and was housed at Kenneth Poos’s home because he used her in the Center’s educational programs.
- No witness saw Sophie bite the child; a neighbor heard screams and saw the child on his back with the wolf straddling him inside the enclosure.
- After the incident, Kenneth Poos made statements indicating Sophie bit the child: (1) a handwritten note left for the Center’s executive director, and (2) an oral statement to that executive director later that day.
- The Center’s board minutes later recorded that Sophie had bitten a child.
- In the damages action, the trial court excluded the note, the oral statement, and the relevant portion of the board minutes as hearsay (and, as to Poos’s statements, also for lack of personal knowledge), and the defendants prevailed at trial.

## Issues

1. Whether Poos’s note and oral statement that “Sophie bit a child” were admissible against Poos as party admissions under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(A).
2. Whether Poos’s note and oral statement were admissible against the Center as agent/employee admissions under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(D).
3. Whether the board minutes stating Sophie bit a child were admissible against the Center and/or against Poos.
4. Whether personal knowledge is required for admissibility of statements offered as party-opponent admissions under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2).

## Decision

- The judgment for defendants was reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.
- Poos’s note and oral statement were admissible against Poos under Rule 801(d)(2)(A).
- Poos’s note and oral statement were admissible against the Center under Rule 801(d)(2)(D) because they concerned a matter within the scope of his employment and were made during the employment relationship.
- The board minutes were admissible against the Center as the corporation’s admission under Rule 801(d)(2), but were not admissible against Poos because he did not attend, participate in, or adopt the board’s statement.
- Lack of personal knowledge did not bar admissibility of these admissions; it affected only the weight for the factfinder.

## Legal Principles

- A statement offered against an opposing party is not hearsay if it is the party’s own statement. Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(A).
- A statement offered against an opposing party is not hearsay if made by the party’s agent or employee on a matter within the scope of that relationship and during its existence. Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(D).
- Party-opponent admissions under Rule 801(d)(2) do not require the declarant to have personal knowledge; deficiencies in perception or basis are for cross-examination and argument to the jury.
- Corporate board minutes can constitute admissions of the corporation when they record the board’s adopted account, but they do not automatically operate as admissions of individual employees who did not participate or adopt the statement.
- Erroneous exclusion of central admissions bearing on a disputed, dispositive fact warrants a new trial when the error is not harmless.

## Conclusion

The court ordered a new trial because the excluded note, oral statement, and board-minutes entry were admissible admissions under Rule 801(d)(2), and personal knowledge was not a condition of admissibility; the evidence was critical to proving whether the wolf bit the child.


Mahlandt v. Wild Canid Survival & Rsch. Ctr., Inc., 588 F.2d 626 (8th Cir. 1978)