## Facts

- Around 4:30 a.m. on July 14, 2007, the complainant encountered Oldalys Ortega outside a bodega in Washington Heights.
- The complainant said Ortega and another person used guns to force him to smoke crack cocaine and to withdraw money from ATMs using his bank cards.
- The complainant escaped and went to a hospital, where medical personnel recorded that he reported being “forced to” smoke a white substance from a pipe.
- Later that evening, police stopped Ortega’s car for a traffic violation and recovered crack cocaine and the complainant’s cell phone, identification, and bank cards.
- Ortega’s defense was that the complainant voluntarily smoked crack, voluntarily withdrew his own money, and voluntarily left his property with Ortega.
- At trial, the prosecution introduced portions of the complainant’s hospital records as business records, including the “forced to” entry; the defense objected on hearsay grounds.
- A jury convicted Ortega of criminal possession of stolen property in the fourth degree; the Appellate Division affirmed, and Ortega appealed by leave.

## Issues

1. Whether a hospital-record entry reflecting the complainant’s statement that he was “forced to” smoke a substance was admissible under the business-records exception as germane to diagnosis and treatment.
2. If admission was erroneous, whether the error required reversal or was harmless.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction.
- The Court held that statements in medical records describing circumstances of ingestion or injury may be admissible where relevant to diagnosis and treatment.
- Even assuming the “forced to” language should have been excluded, any error was harmless because the complainant testified to the same facts and other evidence strongly corroborated the prosecution’s case.

## Legal Principles

- Hospital records may qualify as business records, but patient statements embedded in them are admissible only to the extent they are germane to diagnosis and treatment and carry sufficient reliability.
- Statements bearing on the nature and cause of symptoms or injuries, or the mechanism and circumstances of ingestion, may be admissible; statements offered primarily to establish liability or fault generally are not.
- An evidentiary error does not warrant reversal where there is no reasonable possibility the challenged proof contributed to the verdict, including where the proof is cumulative of live testimony and supported by independent corroborating evidence.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Ortega’s conviction, concluding that the challenged hospital-record entry could be treated as diagnosis-related, and that in any event its admission did not affect the verdict given the complainant’s in-court testimony and corroborating physical evidence.


People v. Ortega, 15 N.Y.3d 610, 942 N.E.2d 210 (N.Y. 2010)