People v. Tan – GR L-14257 (1959)

Facts:
Respondent Judge rejected the admission of the Triplicate carbon copy as evidence of the prosecution.

Issue:
Whether a triplicates carbon copies are not admissible unless it is first proven that the originals were lost and cannot be produced.

Held:
No, the admissibly of duplicates or triplicates has long been a settled question and we need not elaborate on the reasons for the rule. When carbon sheets are inserted between two or more sheets of writing paper so that the writing of a contract upon the outside sheet, including the signature of the party to be charged thereby, produces 2 facsimile upon the sheets beneath, such signature being thus reproduced by the same stroke of the pen which made the surface or exposed impression, all of the sheets so written on are regarded as duplicate originals and either of them may be introduced in evidence as such without accounting for the nonproduction of the others.

The best evidence rule is that rule which requires the highest grade of evidence obtainable to prove a disputed fact. A “duplicate sales slip” has been held to be primary evidence. Duplicate originals. — Where letters are produced by mechanical means and, concurrently with the original, duplicate are produced, as by placing carbon paper and writing on the exposed surface at the same time, all are duplicate originals, and any one of them may introduced in evidence without accounting for the nonproduction of the other. Carbon copies, however, when made at the same time and on the same machine as the original, are duplicate originals, and these have been held to be as much primary evidence as the originals.