Case ID: va_26/html/0345-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "JUDGE CAEE", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Hunter v. Fulcher.
    March, 1827.
    Depositions — Notice of Takinjr — Sufficiency of. — A notice to take depositions is insufficient, if it omits the place where the depositions are to he taken; nor, if the Magistrates meet on the day appointed, can they resume the taking of depositions at any future day. without an adjournment to such day.
    Law of Sister State — Authentication-Sufficiency of.— A law of another State is sufficiently authenticated under the Act of Congress, if it has the Seal of the State affixed thereto; and the particular officer entitled to affix the Seal, depends upon the regulations of the several States, respectively.
    Evidence — Law of Another State — Whole Law Unnecessary,  — Where a party In a suit in Virginia, relies on the law of another State, to support his claim, he may produce an authenticated copy of the section only on which he relies, without a copy of the whole law.
    Hunter, a man of colour, brought an action of assault and battery against Fulcher, in the Court of 'Hustings of the City of Richmond, to recover his freedom. An issue being made upon the plea of not guilty, the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff.
    At the trial, the plaintiff offered in evidence, a paper purporting to be the first section of an Act of Assembly of ’■'Maryland, entitled, ‘ ‘An Act relating to negroes, and to repeal the Acts of Assembly therein mentioned.” This paper was authenticated by Thomas Harris, Clerk of the Court of Appeals for the Western Shore of the said State, who affixed the seal of the said Court of Appeals. Then followed a certificate by John Buchanan, “Chief Judge of the State of Maryland, for the Court of Appeals,” that “Thomas Harris is Clerk of the said Court of Appeals for the Western Shore, and that the annexed attestation by him is in due form and by the proper officer. ’ ’ After this, there is a certificate by “Thomas Culbreth, Clerk of the Council of the State of Maryland,” that John Buchanan aforesaid was, at the time of signing the foregoing certificate, Chief Judge of the said State for the Court of Appeals, &c. Ramsay Waters, Register of the Court of Chancery, certifies, that Thomas Culbreth is Clerk ox the Executive Council of the State of Maryland; and he affixes the great seal of the State aforesaid. To the introduction of these certificates, the defendant objected, because they were not proved and certified according to law, and because the first of them, or that part of it which purported to be an Act of the Legislature of the State of Maryland, was not a fuil exemplification or copy of that Act. But. the Court refused to exclude the said papers from the jury, and permitted them 1o be read in evidence; to which opinion, the defendant excepted.
    The plaintiff aiso offered in evidence the commission to two justices of the peace of the county of Washington in the District of Columbia, to take the depositions of sundry witnesses; and a statement by the said justices, that they met and sat at the office of the Mayor of Georgetown, on Saturday, the 8lh day of October, and thereafter on Friday and Saturday, the 14th and ISth days of the said month, and thence by adjournment from day to day till Tuesday, the 18th day of the Said month, for the examination of the witnesses mentioned in the commission, and the said Fulcher, the defendant, did not appear before them, either in *persou or by attorney. He also introduced a witness, who swore that on Tuesday evening previous to the 8th day of October, 1825, he delivered to the defendant Fulcher, a notice to take the depositions of the said witnesses: that he did not recollect on what day the notice stated that the depositions would be taken; but that upon reference to the said depositions, and to the minutes of the Court, the fact is brought distinctly to his mind, that the day fixed in the notice for taking the said depositions, was on the Saturday previous to the October term of the Hustings Court, which was on the 8th day of October, 1825; but, that the notice itself had been mislaid or lost, &c. The Court permitted the said evidence to go to the jury, and the defendant excepted.
    The Court gave judgment for the plaintiff, and the defendant appealed to the Superior Court of Henrico. That Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Hustings, because the Act of the Legislature of the State of Maryland aforesaid, ought not to have been permitted to go to the jury, as it was uot proved or certified according to law.
    From this judgment, the plaintiff appealed to this Court.
    French and Southgate, for the appellant.
    Daniel, for the appellee.
    It was contended for the appellant, that the Maryland Act was duly authenticated, according to the Act of Congress. L. U. S. 1 vol. 115, chap. 11. In the case of the U. States v. Johns, 4 Dali. 416, it is decided, that no particular officer of a State is required to attest a copy of a law; but that it is sufficient, if the great seal is affixed. This doctrine is confirmed by the case of Ferguson v. Harwood, 7 Cranch. 412. Foreign laws may be proved by exemplification under the great seal, and by the laws printed by the public printer. Norris’s Peake, 109, 110; Ü. States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 624. As to the objection that *part of the law only was certified, that rule only applies to judicial proceedings. But, with regard to laws, every section is a distinct fact. If the opposite party thinks that there is something in another part of the law, which operates in his favor, it is incumbent on him to produce it. Dive v. Manningham, 1 Plowd. 60; Newes & ux. v. Lark and Hunt, Ibid. 408.
    For the appellee, it was said, that this law was not authenticated, either according to the common law or the Act of Congress. By the common law, foreign laws must be proved by a witness on oath. Talbot v. Seaman, 1 Cranch, 1; Church v. Hubbart, 2 Cranch, 237. The Act of Congress has not been complied with ; for, the great seal is not affixed to the law, but to the certificate that “Thomas Culbreth is clerk of the Executive Council.”
    But the whole Act is not certified, which was necessary according to all the principles which govern evidence. 1 Phill. Evid. 289. Statutes should be taken all together. 4 Bac. Abr. I. tit. Statutes. The cases from Plowden relate to pleading, and not to evidence.
    The notice for taking depositions was too short, and no place was appointed for taking them. They vrere taken, too, without a regular adjournment from day to day.
    
      
       Depositions — Notice of Taking— Sufficiency of. — Sec on this subí ect. monographic note on “Depositions'’ appended to Field v. Drown. 34 Gratt. 74.
      The principal case is cited with approval in Harris v. Harris, 89 Va. 765,17S. B. Rep. 871: Richardson v. Donehoo, 16 W. Va. 710; Bennett v. Bennett, 37 W Va. 406.16 S. B. Rep. 642.
    
    
      
       Evidence — Laws of Sister State — Whole Law Unnecessary. — See principal case cited in Union Cen-tra] Life Ins. Co. v. Rollara. 94 Va. 154, 26 S. H. Rep 42k foot-note to Wilson v. La7,ier, 11 Gratt. 477.
      See further, monographic note on "Evidence” appended to Lee v. Tapscott, 2 Wash. 376.
    
   March 22.

JUDGE CAEE

delivered his opinion.

In this case it seems, that a written notice of the place of taking the depositions, was given to Fulcher; but, that being lost, the person who gave it is introduced to prove the notice. He swears, that on the Tuesday before the Saturday on which the Justices first met, he gave Fulcher a notice to take the depositions, but he no where states in his affidavit a notice of the place of taking them. It is not unlikely that this was stated in his evidence before the Court, but omitted in taking down that evidence. We, however, must go by the record, and this seems to be a *defect. But this is not the worst. In the certificate of the magistrates, they state that they had met at the Mayor’s Office of Georgetown on Saturday the 8th day of October, 1825, and “thereafter, on Friday and Saturday, 14th and 15th of same month, and thence by adjournment, till Tuesday, 18th, for the examination of .the witnesses,” &c. and “that no person appeared for Yeatman or Fulcher.” The 8th of October was the day on which Fulcher had notice to attend. On that day, it seems, there was a mere meeting. How long it lasted, we are not told; nor did the magistrates adjourn to any further day. How then could Fulcher know that they would meet again on that business? Or, what power had they to do so, without adjournment? The meeting on the 14th and 15th, was quite a distinct thing, and required a notice as much as the first meeting. I consider the depositions, therefore, as taken wholly without notice, and improperly admitted.

As to the Maryland law, it is objected, first, that it is not properly authenticated. I think it is. The Act of Congress says, that the Acts of the several Legislatures shall be authenticated, by having the seal of their State affixed thereto. This is the whole that is required. Here the seal is certainly affixed, and to this law, and with the sole view of authenticating the law. The mode seems somewhat roundabout; several officers attesting the authenticity of the Acts of each other. But, this is the mode which the State authorities have settled, and to them the Act meant to leave the matter. In the U. States v. Johns, 4 Dall. 412, the Court, composed of Judges Washington and Peters, say, “The Act of Congress does not require the attestation of any public officer in this case; although in all the other cases provided for, such an attestation is required. There is good reason for the distinction. The seal is in itself the highest test of authenticity; and leaving the evidence upon that alone, precludes all controversy as to the officer entitled to affix the seal, which is a regulation very different in the different States. ’ ’ Here we have the great *seal of the State affixed; and all controversy as to the proper officer to affix it being precluded, we must take it that it is properly affixed.

The next objection, to wit, that this evidence ought not to be admitted, because it is one section only of the Act, has a greater show of reason in it, but yet is not sound, as I incline to think. The objection rests on this ground; that the whole law is one entire record, and that no part of a record can be used as evidence, without exhibiting the whole. This is true •of judicial records, and for the best reason; that the whole record is one, and without the whole, you cannot tell what is the effect -of it. But, with Legislative Acts, it is ■different. We know well, that some of our Acts occupy many pages, and treat of many different parts of an extensive subject, and sometimes of different subjects, wholly unconnected with each other. We are told in Plowd. 65, that a statute often -contains many branches, and “that these branches, though contained in one chapter, are several Acts of Parliament, and concern several matters; and then, where one branch only serves a man’s purpose, it is sufficient for him to recite that only; for the recital of that only is the recital of an entire and several Act of Parliament;” and if this rule hold in the strictness of pleading, I cannot see why it should not as to evidence. The section of the law of Maryland is perfect as to sense and purpose. It enacts that it shall not be lawful to bring a slave into the State, either for sale or residence there; and that any slave brought in, contrary to the Act, shall immediately be free. Now, wc cannot suppose that in this same Act, there can be any clause contradicting this; and if there should be one narrowing or modifying it; saying (for instance,) that where a citizen of Maryland acquires a slave by descent or marriage, he may bring him in, provided that within such a time he has him registered ; would not the claimant have to bring himself, by proof, within the proviso? And if you would hold him to that, would it be any additional burthen to say he should produce the *law which authorised such proof? The law (if it exist) he may easily produce. The proof may be much more difficult. But, if no such proviso exist, will you require the pauper to prove this negative? My present impression then is, that the law is well authenticated; and that the section produced is admissible evidence; but, that the depositions were improperly admitted, there being no notice.

The judgments of both Courts should be reversed, and the cause sent back.

The other Judges concurred.