To do this, I added some lines of code and instead of doing this in the view, I did it in the main controller. Here's the block that did it:
when "cu" then # customer data request
# Verify that customer is in the customer table
if Customer.exists?(@data)
# exists, display custdisply.html.erb
render :action => 'custdisplay'
else
# does not, display notfound.html.erb
render :action => 'notfound'
end