When may the absence of a business entry be admitted under Rule 803(7)?

• A. To prove nonexistence of a matter when a business keeps no entry for it and it would be recorded if it occurred.
• B. To prove that a matter did not occur when the business keeps entries for it.
• C. Only entries in the ordinary course.
• D. Never admissible.

Answer: (A)

This tests understanding of the business records exception and how silence can be informative. Under Rule 803(7), you can admit the absence of a business entry to prove that a matter did not occur, but only if the business normally keeps records of that kind in its ordinary course and would have recorded it if it had happened. The idea is that the routine practice is reliable enough that the lack of a record is itself evidence of nonexistence.

So the scenario fits best when there is no entry for the matter and, given the business’s regular procedures, an entry would have been made if the matter had occurred. That absence becomes meaningful evidence of nonoccurrence. The other options don’t capture this conditional: one overstates or misstates the use of absence, another restricts to only what’s in the ordinary course, and another says it’s never admissible.