Rule 1284 Evidence of a writing made by the public employee who is the official custodian of the records in a public office, reciting diligent search and failur…

Sometimes you need to prove that a government office has no record of something. For example, you might want to show that someone was never issued a license, or that no complaint was ever filed.

A court will accept a written statement from the official record keeper at a government office saying they searched and could not find a record. Even though this is a secondhand written statement (which courts normally question), it is allowed as valid evidence to show the record does not exist.