## Facts

- Rita Thakore was employed by CIBA Vision.
- In March 2004, Thakore was injured when a press manufactured by Universal Machine Co. of Pottstown, Inc. descended onto her hand while she was cleaning the machine.
- Thakore alleged the press was improperly designed and/or manufactured and brought product-liability claims (including negligence-based theories and strict liability) against Universal.
- After the incident, CIBA Vision prepared an internal accident-investigation report as part of its workplace safety and incident-review process.
- As the case approached jury trial in the Northern District of Illinois, the parties filed motions in limine concerning what evidence the jury would be permitted to hear.
- One contested motion focused on whether Thakore could introduce CIBA Vision’s accident-investigation report, which Universal argued was inadmissible hearsay rather than an admissible business record.

## Issues

1. Whether CIBA Vision’s accident-investigation report was inadmissible hearsay, or admissible under the business-records exception in Federal Rule of Evidence 803(6).
2. Whether the court should enter broad, categorical in limine rulings excluding damages-related proof on the ground that it would invite jury speculation.

## Decision

- The court denied Universal’s motion to exclude CIBA Vision’s accident-investigation report, finding that (with the proper foundation) the report could be admitted as a business record under Rule 803(6); challenges to the report’s reliability were for cross-examination and weight.
- The court declined to use motions in limine to impose sweeping pretrial exclusions of damages evidence as “speculative,” explaining that admissibility often depends on trial foundation and context and that specific objections could be made at trial when the evidence was offered.

## Legal Principles

- Motions in limine are designed to resolve concrete evidentiary disputes, but courts often defer ruling (or rule narrowly) when admissibility depends on how evidence is presented at trial and what foundation is laid.
- A record may be admitted under Federal Rule of Evidence 803(6) when it is made at or near the time of the events, kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity, and making such a record is a regular practice of that activity, with the required foundation supplied by a qualified witness or certification.
- Even if a document qualifies under Rule 803(6), the opposing party may attack trustworthiness; those attacks commonly affect weight rather than admissibility unless the circumstances show a lack of reliability.
- Damages must be proven and may not rest on conjecture; however, the remedy for speculative questions or unsupported opinions is typically targeted objection, cross-examination, and contrary proof, rather than blanket exclusion of entire categories of damages evidence in advance of trial.

## Conclusion

In this pretrial evidentiary decision, the court addressed motions in limine in a product-liability case arising from a workplace press injury and held that CIBA Vision’s accident-investigation report could be admitted as a Rule 803(6) business record upon proper foundation, while refusing to impose broad pretrial bars on damages evidence based on generalized speculation concerns and leaving context-dependent objections for trial.


Thakore v. Universal Machine Co. of Pottstown, Inc., 670 F. Supp. 2d 705 (2009)