Reported / Citable
Background
Spring Oaks Capital SPV, LLC, a debt buyer, filed a collection action against Jamice Fowler on common-counts theories alleging account stated and money lent. About six weeks before trial, Fowler served a Code of Civil Procedure section 96 statement requesting Spring Oaks’s witness names and street addresses, plus descriptions of evidence to be offered. Spring Oaks responded that it intended to call ‘a custodian of records,’ identified Kyle Collins as the most likely witness, and gave only Spring Oaks’s corporate address — not the address of the witness himself.
At trial, Spring Oaks did not call Collins. Instead it presented testimony from Veronica Russell as custodian of records. Fowler moved in limine to exclude any witness other than Collins, and separately objected to the admission of two exhibits — chain-of-title documents and billing statements from the original creditor (the Bank of Missouri) — for lack of business-records foundation.
The trial court denied Fowler’s motions, admitted Russell’s testimony and the exhibits, and entered judgment for Spring Oaks. Fowler appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Appellate Division reversed. On the witness-disclosure issue, section 96 requires the responding party to identify witnesses and provide their street addresses, not just the addresses of the responding party’s corporate offices. Spring Oaks’s identification of ‘authorized representatives’ at the company’s Virginia headquarters did not satisfy section 96. The omission deprived Fowler of the ability to subpoena Collins (or any specific witness) and prepare cross-examination materials. The court could substitute Russell for Collins because of Spring Oaks’s deficient disclosure.
On the business-records issue, the court held the chain-of-title documents and the original creditor’s billing statements were not properly authenticated under Evidence Code section 1271. Russell testified she was familiar with Spring Oaks’s record-keeping but was not employed by the Bank of Missouri and was not familiar with that bank’s record-keeping or document-generation processes. Without that foundational testimony, the original-creditor business records could not be admitted under section 1271’s standards. A debt buyer’s reconciliation of records does not, by itself, supply the missing foundation.
Because the evidence supporting the trial court’s judgment was admitted in error, the judgment was reversed.
Key Takeaways
- Code of Civil Procedure section 96 statements must include the witness’s actual street address, not just the responding party’s corporate headquarters.
- Failure to disclose specific witness addresses precludes calling those witnesses at trial, even if the response identifies the company at large.
- To admit an original creditor’s records under Evidence Code section 1271, the proponent must lay foundation through a witness familiar with the original creditor’s record-keeping practices, not just the assignee’s reconciliation processes.
- Debt buyers in California consumer-collection cases must plan trial evidence carefully; assignee-only foundation testimony will not satisfy the business-records exception for the original creditor’s documents.
- Defendants in debt-buyer cases should aggressively use section 96 disclosures and business-records objections to test the buyer’s evidence.
Why It Matters
This is a significant decision for California consumer-debt litigation. Debt buyers routinely sue on accounts they have purchased from the original creditor, often relying on chain-of-title documents and copied billing statements. The Santa Clara Appellate Division has now made clear that this routine evidentiary playbook is not enough. To get original-creditor records admitted, the buyer must produce a witness with actual familiarity with the original creditor’s record-keeping practices.
For consumer-debt defendants and their counsel, the case is a powerful tool. Section 96 disclosure requirements should be aggressively enforced, and business-records objections should be thoroughly developed. For debt buyers, the practical lesson is to invest in real evidentiary planning — including potentially obtaining declarations or live testimony from original-creditor representatives — rather than relying on assignee custodians to authenticate records they did not create.