Rule 803(7) addresses?

• A. Public records
• B. Present sense impression
• C. Excited utterance
• D. Absence of a business record

Answer: (D)

The key idea is that you can prove that a matter didn’t happen by showing there’s no record of it in a business-records system, when such records are normally kept. Under this rule, the absence of a record regarding a matter—kept in the regular course of business—can be admitted to support that the matter did not occur or does not exist. This relies on the idea that if a company routinely records transactions or events, a missing entry is meaningful and trustworthy enough to be admitted as evidence of nonoccurrence, provided the absence is established through proper foundation (such as testimony from a custodian who maintains the records).

This differs from other hearsay principles like present sense impression (describing an event as it happens) or excited utterance (a spontaneous statement about a startling event), which serve different purposes, and from public records, which involve records kept by public offices. The absence-of-record concept is specifically about proving nonexistence by showing the expected record is missing.