Rule 80.Transcript or statement of evidence made part of record

A trial isn't just what happens in the courtroom — it's what makes it into the record afterward, and Rule 80 governs how that happens in West Virginia. A certified transcript of a stenographically or mechanically recorded trial or hearing becomes part of the case record once it's filed with the court (a transcript of a hearing before a commissioner joins the record too, but only if it's filed before the action is submitted for disposition of the commissioner's report), and it counts as authenticated and presumptively accurate once a court reporter or authorized person certifies it's accurate and states whether it covers all or only part of the proceeding. Whoever files a transcript has to promptly notify every other party, and any party can move to correct an error in it, with the court directing the correction once the error is proven.

Sometimes no transcript exists at all — no stenographic or mechanical record was made, or it can't be obtained. Rule 80(e) lets a party reconstruct a statement of what happened from the best available means, including their own recollection, to stand in for a transcript. That statement gets served on every other party, who have 14 days to object or propose amendments; the court then resolves any dispute over its accuracy, and once approved (with or without changes) and signed by the judge, the statement becomes part of the record just like a transcript would.

Rule 80 closes with a piece of legal housekeeping: it abolishes the old common-law "bills and certificates of exception" that transcripts and this rule's statement-of-proceedings procedure have replaced. And a certified transcript of testimony from an earlier hearing or trial can itself be used as evidence later, if that testimony would otherwise be admissible.