Does converting an e-mail to PDF diminish its legal integrity?

[SarcasticDwarf]

I am working on a paper for a class and this thought occurred to me. Let's say I get e-mails containing agreements and convert them to PDF with headers shown. I then delete the original e-mail. (This would be a document kept at a single person business in an industry that is not particularly litigious or regulated.)

How much does this diminish the integrity of the record in the eyes of the court? I would guess that in a more civil matter that it would not be much of an issue, but in a case of two corporate giants going after eachother it would be a problem.

 

[rivan]

As long as the entirety of the email (including all header info) is in the PDF, what difference would it make?

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: rivan
As long as the entirety of the email (including all header info) is in the PDF, what difference would it make?

i guess there could be a question of if he modified the original.

 

[Eeezee]

Yeah, I don't see any problem with converting to a PDF. In fact, PDFs make most documents look more professional if anything.

 

[axelfox]

as long as someone authenticates the document.

 

[Mr Pickles]

Its a file format change, not a content change. You'll be fine. How else would you get it to them? Keeping it in the form of a .msg and hoping they have something they can import it into?

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: rivan
As long as the entirety of the email (including all header info) is in the PDF, what difference would it make?

i guess there could be a question of if he modified the original.

Correct. There would also be no real audit trail. Keep in mind that this is for a small business so we are not talking about a company that has a multi-million dollar records management system complete with audit trail functions.

If Microsoft was sued by Adobe and a PDF version of an e-mail was their only record then I think there would be major problems. If Mary's Lemonade Stand sued Bob's Kool-Aid Works and the same document was present I would think it would hold more weight.

 

[Ns1]

You can easily edit a PDF

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: Mr Pickles
Keeping it in the form of a .msg and hoping they have something they can import it into?

Standard practice at corporates is to more or less do this. All e-mail is stored on the server. At some point it is moved to a more permanent archive, usually offline storage (though NAS is more and more popular).

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: rivan
As long as the entirety of the email (including all header info) is in the PDF, what difference would it make?

i guess there could be a question of if he modified the original.

Correct. There would also be no real audit trail. Keep in mind that this is for a small business so we are not talking about a company that has a multi-million dollar records management system complete with audit trail functions.

If Microsoft was sued by Adobe and a PDF version of an e-mail was their only record then I think there would be major problems. If Mary's Lemonade Stand sued Bob's Kool-Aid Works and the same document was present I would think it would hold more weight.

not really. you'd just authenticate it like any other document. are you the custodian of records? was this record kept in the normal course of business? blah blah. it'd be fine. it's the same sort of thing as destroying paper copies in favor of keeping electronic versions.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: rivan
As long as the entirety of the email (including all header info) is in the PDF, what difference would it make?

i guess there could be a question of if he modified the original.

Correct. There would also be no real audit trail. Keep in mind that this is for a small business so we are not talking about a company that has a multi-million dollar records management system complete with audit trail functions.

If Microsoft was sued by Adobe and a PDF version of an e-mail was their only record then I think there would be major problems. If Mary's Lemonade Stand sued Bob's Kool-Aid Works and the same document was present I would think it would hold more weight.

not really. you'd just authenticate it like any other document. are you the custodian of records? was this record kept in the normal course of business? blah blah. it'd be fine. it's the same sort of thing as destroying paper copies in favor of keeping electronic versions.

How would authentication take place with a single person business? I could swear it is true and accurate and point to my records retention policy and schedules showing that it is a document that would be kept. That is enough?

 

[Jeeebus]

there's nothing wrong with turning all your documents into pdf, tiff, etc., assuming that's your ordinary course of business. Now, if served with document requests, you take it upon yourself to then convert everything into some unknown format, you're going to run into problems.

Until litigation comes into play, as long as you're following your records retention/document destruction policy, you're basically within your rights.

 

[daveshel]

The Federal Rules of Evidence allow for substitution of various forms of reproductions when originals are unavailable. But an original would carry more weight.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

How would authentication take place with a single person business? I could swear it is true and accurate and point to my records retention policy and schedules showing that it is a document that would be kept. That is enough?

pretty much. though if this is an actual situation you're in you should talk to your own lawyer instead of just me. my representations here do not constitute a lawyer-client relationship with you and you should get a second opinion rather than relying on what i say, as i have no idea about your jurisdiction.

 

[alkemyst]

anything but the original email can be discarded as possibly modified.

This is why a lot of companies have short email retentions available for the associates.

The reasons for this is not so much to hide the company's dirty acts...but employees tend to only save the parts of a story that cover their own ass. When subpoenaed their own email records are severely lacking.

In court it was easy to say 'obviously the employee kept 'good' records...since nothing was mentioned about the issue, then it must have never happened'.