Case ID: watts_5/html/0432-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Forsythe against Norcross.
    Memoranda made upon a slate, and transcribed into a book five or six days1 afterwards, are not such original entries as can be submitted to a jury as evidence.Nor will any prevailing custom make them evidence.
    ERROR to the common pleas of Fayette county.
    Norcross v. Forsythe, assumpsit, in book account, for blacksmith work done by the plaintiff for the defendant.
    The plaintiff being sworn, said, that the books exhibited were his books of original entry: that-he made the entries on a slate until it was full, and then after four, five, or six days, transcribed them into his book; and he and three other witnesses, blacksmiths> swore that this was a general custom, as far as they knew.
    The court received the evidence and the defendant excepted.
    
      Deford, for plaintiff in error,
    cited 1 Dall. 239; 1 Binn. 234; 4 Serg. & Rawle 3; 5 Serg. & Rawle 404; 12 Serg. & Rawle 411; 4 Yeates 341; 12 Serg. & Rawle 80; 5 Serg. & Rawle 226; 13 Serg. & Rawle 126; 1 Yeates 198-321; 4 Rawle 404; 3 Watts 325.
    And proof of a particular custom will not control the law, 1 Watts 360 ; 6 Binn. 417.
    
      Flanagan, for defendant in error.
   Per Curiam.

An entry on a card or a slate, is but a memorandum preparatory to permanent evidence of the transaction, which must be perfected at or near the time, and in the routine of the business. But the routine must be a reasonable one; for there is nothing in the condition of a craftsman to call for indulgence till his slate be full, or till it be convenient for him to dispose of the ■contents of it. In Ingraham v. Bockius, 9 Serg. & Rawle 285, and Patton v. Ryan, 4 Rawle 410, the entries were transferred the same evening or the next morning; and they ought in every instance to be so in the course of the succeeding day. In Vicary v. Moore, 2 Watts 458, entries transferred from scraps of paper carried about in the pocket during one or more days, were held to be inadmissible; and on this principle, the book was, in the present instance, incompetent.

Judgment reversed, and a venire de novo awarded.