CHAPTER NO. 995

HOUSE BILL NO. 2406

By Representative Buck

Substituted for: Senate Bill No. 2750

By Senator Person

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 24, Chapter 7, relative to evidence.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:

SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 24, Chapter 7, is amended by adding the following as a new and appropriately designated section:

Section ___. (a) If any business, institution, member of a profession or calling, or any department or agency of government, in the regular course of business or activity has kept or created any writing, recording or photograph of any act, transaction, occurrence or event, and in the regular course of business has caused any or all of the same to be recorded, copied, or reproduced by any photographic, photostatic, microfilm, microcard, miniature photographic, electronic image or other process which accurately reproduces or forms a durable medium for so reproducing the original, the original may be destroyed in the regular course of business unless its preservation is required by law.

(b) Such reproduction, when satisfactorily identified, is as admissible in evidence as the original itself in any judicial or administrative proceeding whether the original is in existence or not and an enlargement or facsimile of such reproduction is likewise admissible in evidence if the original reproduction is in existence and available for inspection under direction of court.

(c) The introduction of a reproduced record, enlargement or facsimile does not preclude admission of the original.

SECTION 2. This act shall take effect upon becoming a law, the public welfare requiring it.

PASSED: April 29, 1998

APPROVED this 18th day of May 1998