Case ID: serg-rawl_13/html/0334-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Gibson, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[Chambersburg,
    October 31, 1825.]
    VORIS and others against SMITH and Wife.
    IN ERROR.
    The certificate of the presiding judge of a district is evidence to show him interested in a cause, so as to justify its trial by a neighbouring president, but not to show that the suit is not pending.
    Generally speaking, the court below is to judge whether notice of the time and place of taking a deposition is proved.
    
      A certificate from a prothonotary, that a paper is a copy of a record, imports that it contains the whole record.
    Irregularities in judicial proceedings are not to be objected to collaterally, by third persons.
    Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Bedford county, in which a verdict and judgment were rendered in favour of the plaintiffs below, the defendants in error, William Smith, and dignes, his wife, in an ejectment against the plaintiffs in error, and the defendants below, Peter Voris, and the heirs of William Crabb, deceased.
    The case was called on for trial at a special court, held at Bedford, before Baird, President of the fourteenth district, and the’associate judges of Bedford county, and the defendants objected to the trial of the cause, on the ground that the case was not certified to the prothonotary, by Huston, President, to be pending, and undetermined, and relied on a certificate, signed by him, containing a list of the cases in that county, in which he had been engaged as counsel, previous to his appointment as President, among which this cause was, but accompanied with the remark, that he “did not admit that the case of Smith and Wife v. Voris was pending, and undetermined; he well recollected, that the plaintiff in that cause suffered a nonsuit, many years before, but he certified it for the purpose of having some decision.” The court, however, overruled the objection, and proceeded to the trial.
    The defendants offered in evidence, the official copy of the record of a suit, Plunket against Nelson, in Cumberland county, certified by William Lyon, then prothonotary, dated the 24th of March, 1797. To this the plaintiffs objected, and the court overruled the evidence, and the defendants excepted.
    The defendants then offered the deposition of James Duncan, taken the 1st of October, 1811, at the prothonot-ary’s office, in Carlisle, in pursuance of a notice in the hand-writing of John Lyon, Esq. then attorney for the defendants, and the testimony of James M. Russell, then attorney on record for the plaintiffs, that Mr. Lyon gave him a copy of a notice, to take the depositions of some witnesses, at Carlisle, in this suit; he could not say that this was a true copy of it, or that it was not. He had no recollection that he objected to the notice, and perhaps did not know at the time that the service of such notice on the attorney was invalid. The paper produced was in Mr. Lyon’s hand-writing, and was found by the witness after his decease, among Mr. Crabb’s papers. The witness had no interest in the suit, as attorney for the plaintiffs, and never, to his knowledge, saw the plaintiffs, or either of them, or any of their title papers, till thie day. He instituted the suit shortly after he came to reside in Bedford, by direction of James Riddle, Esq., with whom he had studied law. He had no recollection of assenting to the service of the notice on him, or refusing. He frequently wrote to Mr. James Riddle, on the subject of the suit, as it progressed. To this deposition of James Duncan, so offered, the plaintiffs objected, and the court sustained the objection, and overruled the testimony.
    The deposition of John Steel was then offered in evidence, taken the-lst of October, 1811, by the defendants, which was also objected to, and rejected by the court. To both these opinions the defendants excepted.
    
      Russell and Chambers, for the plaintiffs in error.
    
      Thompson, contra.
   The opinion of the court was delivered by

Gibson, J.

That the special court had jurisdiction, does not admit of a question. The certificate of Judge Huston was competent and satisfactory evidence to show his interest, but not to show that the cause was not depending. That could be shown only by inspecting the record. Our judicial records are brought to a bad pass, indeed, if the evidence of a judgment of nonsuit is in any gase'to be found only in the recollection of witnesses.

Nor do I allow more weight to the bill of exceptions, for rejecting the depositions. To decide on the evidence of preliminary facts, is peculiarly the province of the court below; and, although I will not at present say, that a mistake in this particular may not be corrected on a writ of error, it is sufficient, for; the purpose of deciding the present question, that due notice of the time and place of taking the depositions was not attempted to be proved.

But the next exception is better founded. An extract from a record is not competent evidence; but, whether it be only an extract, or an exemplification of the whole, must be determined by inspection, not of the record itself, but of the certificate of the officer by whom it is authenticated; and this much was determined in Edmiston v. Schwartz, during the last term of this court, at Sunbury, (ante, 135.) Now, here the prothonotary certifies, that the paper contains “a copy of the record,” which, ex vi termini, means a copy of the whole record. It is not sufficient, to support an objection of this sort, that the record appears to be incomplete; for it may appear to be so, and yet contain every thing that remains in the office. A. contrary rule would exclude every record, a part of which should be lost, or destroyed. But, an attempt has been made to support the rejection of the record, by showing, that the proceedings on the judgment were so defective and irregular, that no title passed by the sheriff’s deed. There is, however, no surer principle of law, than that a third person shall not be affected by mere irregularity, in a proceeding which has not been reversed by a court of competent jurisdiction. The remaining errors have been relinquished; and the judgment is reversed, on the error which relates to the rejection of the record.

Judgment reversed, and a venire facias de novo awarded.