Broomfield, CO asked in Landlord - Tenant for Colorado

Q: How can we replace a 3rd party text message in small claims court?

We have a small claims trial coming up. We are the defendants and our previous landlords are the plaintiffs. We have evidence for about 90% of their claims. The townhouse was sold after we moved out and we've texted with the new owners. The 10% that we don't have evidence for we have texts with the new owners about. For example, 1 thing they're coming after us about is 6 wall anchors in a bedroom wall. We have texts with the new owners that our landlords didn't "fix" the wall. That is the ONLY evidence we have. The best we can understand is that these texts messages (between the new owners and ourselves) can't be used as evidence because it would be considered heresy. We're wondering how we're able to prove our side of the case for instances such as these. We've asked the new owners if they would come as as witness and they responded, "I'm sorry but we just really don't want to be involved more than we already are. We can't handle any more dealings with *insert name*.

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1 Lawyer Answer
Tristan Kenyon Schultz
Tristan Kenyon Schultz
Answered
  • Fort Collins, CO
  • Licensed in Colorado

A: You can force their appearance by a subpoena. Another option (which does not require a court appearance) is a sworn affidavit (a statement signed and notarized).

Hearsay is a hard concept (it is a continual source of problems for even experienced litigators). Here is a link to an article that explains the issues: http://sbot.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Authentication-of-Cell-Phone-Text-Messages.pdf . The article refers to Texas rules of evidence which is very similar to federal and Colorado rules of evidence.

You are correct that factual data must be introduced by a person. If you were a participant (i.e. the recipient) of the text messages you can introduce the text messages, however you can only "read-in" the text message.

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