Rule 1007 Testimony or Statement of a Party to Prove Content

If you want to prove what a document, recording, or photo says, you can use the other side's own words to do it. This means you can point to something the opposing party said in testimony, in a deposition, or in a written statement, and use that to show what the original item contained.

The good news is you don't need to explain why you don't have the original document or recording. Normally, if you want to prove what's in a writing or recording, you'd need to produce the original or explain why it's missing. But this rule makes an exception. If the other party has already admitted what the document says (through their own testimony or statements), you can rely on that admission instead of tracking down the original.

This makes things easier in court. If someone on the other side already told you or stated for the record what a document contains, you can use that statement as proof, without jumping through extra hoops to find or explain the absence of the original paper, recording, or photo.