§ 8.01-390.3.Business records as evidence (Subdivision (6) of Supreme Court Rule 2:902 derived in part from this section).

Getting a business record into evidence used to mean bringing in the custodian to testify about how the record was made and kept. Section 8.01-390.3 offers a faster route. In any proceeding where a business record is material and otherwise admissible, the party offering it can lay the authentication and foundation through live witness testimony, through a certification by the custodian or another qualified witness — made either by affidavit or by a statutory declaration under § 8.01-4.3 — or through some combination of the two.

Relying on a certification instead of live testimony comes with a fairness requirement. The party planning to use the certification has to give every other party written notice of that plan and a copy of both the record and the certification, delivered no later than fifteen days before trial or the hearing unless the court sets a different schedule. Anyone who objects has five days to say so, again unless the court orders otherwise. If a party makes a timely objection and does not withdraw it, the certification route closes for that record, and authentication has to go through witness testimony after all.

When nobody objects, or the certification stands unchallenged, a certified business record becomes self-authenticating — it needs no extrinsic evidence of authenticity at all. And a copy of that record can stand in for the original, through witness testimony, a certification, or a mix of both, once the copying requirements set out in § 8.01-391, subsection D, are satisfied.