Consorti v. Armstrong World Industries

Citation
Consorti v. Armstrong World Industries, Inc., 72 F.3d 1003 (2d Cir. 1995), vacated on other grounds, 518 U.S. 1031 (1996) (full-text).

Appellate Court Proceedings
The Second Circuit affirmed a trial court's exclusion of computerized summaries of invoices in an asbestos products-liability case:

"The district court was also within its discretion in excluding the summary evidence proffered by OCF. OCF attempted to use summary evidence &mdash; analyzing Veteran and State invoices using a computer list of asbestos-containing products &mdash; to demonstrate that the Consorti family companies had purchased few asbestos-containing products from OCF. OCF did not introduce the computerized list or make it available in court or to counsel. The district court had ruled that: "In the absence of the list and any testimony concerning its preparation, the summary based upon it became inadmissible." We agree. The records may not have comprised the universe of Veteran documents, and the reason for the exclusion of certain invoices from the summaries was unclear."