![]() Then, after mailing, the chore still isn't over. Adding Return Receipts to the mix adds even more time onto the mailing process. Especially if you have a large-volume office, such as a law firm or medical practice, which needs to send out high numbers of certified packets each week. And let's face it, it's time your office manager could put to more productive use for your company. However, going to your local Post Office and laboriously filling out and affixing the Certified Mail forms - if they even have them - is costly, time-consuming, labor-intensive and mind-numbingly tedious. An additional service sends back a signed receipt confirming delivery. It also comes with a tracking number for online delivery confirmation, and verification that the piece was indeed delivered. When you choose Certified Mail by the US Postal Service, you receive proof that an item was presented for mailing at a Post Office. The USPS' Certified Mail service is there to keep important mailings out of unwanted hands. Even then, letting your mail carrier just leave important business documents in the mailbox is certainly not ideal in these security-minded times. ![]() ![]() Add that point to your response to any objection that opposing counsel might raise.Even though the Internet is used increasingly for private correspondence, when sending important, sensitive documents, the security of postal mail is still the best choice. The party against whom the evidence is admitted is free to attack its credibility or weight with all the concerns about reliability that often are directed against admissibility (see Rule 104(e)). I think evidence discovered by entering a tracking number in USPS's website is very much in your favor as far as credibility, even to the level of judicial notice. Remember, too, that Rules 902(5) and 803(8) deal with threshold admissibility, not the weight afforded by the fact finder. Blackmore Sewer Construction, Inc., 298 F.3d 600, 607 (7th Cir. San Francisco Newspaper Agency, 2002 WL 31119944 (admitting a printout from the "'Track & Confirm' page at the USPS website" because the "USPS qualifies as a public agency" and the "delivery confirmation is a record of the activity that the USPS carries out-namely the delivery of mail")) and second, that you are taking judicial notice of information from an official website (see Laborers' Pension Fund v. You could go with the "two-punch" Illinois Rules of Evidence 902(5) and 803(8): First, that it is a self-authenticating public record (see Chapman v. You can argue the tracking information is admissible as a public record under Illinois Rule of Evidence 803(8). If personal delivery was required, then that is what should have been ordered through a private process server. I really find it hard to believe that the judge would need an affidavit from USPS. I would think that an affidavit from the person who prepared the package and placed it for mailing and obtained the tracking number and delivery confirmation would suffice-along with an additional statement that it was not returned to the sender. ![]() Send out a corporate representative subpoena for an evidence deposition and follow the rules found at 39 C.F.R. That being said, I think you offered the missing piece of the puzzle: Show the judge the tracking code, which will also make the other counsel look like an obstructionist.īryan Sims, Naperville. Often, though not always, when you explain to the recipient of an information request how a subpoena works, they remember how to be flexible. Does anyone know how to get the USPS to provide a self-authenticating document showing mailing dates for certified mail? However, USPS says its policy is never to sign these. We have already asked the USPS, via a subpoena, to sign a simple-form affidavit that would self-authenticate the document under Illinois Rule of Evidence 902(11). However, the defendant disputes the USPS's tracking information and is forcing us to prove the mailing date by other means. We have the tracking number and can show, from the USPS website, the dates it was sent and received. ![]() We need to prove that a letter sent via certified U.S. (From ISBA Central's Litigation community) How do you prove the date a certified letter was mailed when opposing counsel disputes information obtained from the letter's tracking number and the United States Postal Service refuses to sign an affidavit? ![]()
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