Irwin Industrial Tool v. Pifer

Summary

The court held that the eBay-purchased containers and their contents were authenticated as exemplars of Irwin's Strait-Line marking chalk because circumstantial evidence permitted a reasonable juror to find by a preponderance of the evidence that the contents were what the Estate claimed. The trial court therefore erred by requiring an unbroken chain of custody from manufacture and by excluding the samples. The court also declined to decide Irwin's alternative grounds for summary judgment because the record showed that summary judgment rested on the Estate's concession following exclusion of the samples. No separate opinions were filed.