Case ID: stew_1/html/0174-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By JUDGE WHITE.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Rinaldi v. Rives.
    Where there is written evidence in the power of the party to procure, parol evidence is inadmissible.
    Rives brought an action of debt, in the Circuit Court of Dallas county, in August, 1822. against Rinaldi on a promissory note, for g>150, dated 6th September, . 1820,. payable 12th November, 1821. Rinaldi pleaded nil debeti and a special plea, alleging that he gave said note to the plaintiff to secure the payment of part of lot No. 34, in the town of Cahawba, before that time .purchased by him of Rives ; that said lot was sold by the State of Alabama, at public sale, agreeably to law, in May, 1819, for $-; that on the 28th November, 1821, an act of the General Assembly was passed, entitled “ an act for the relief of purchasers of the first sale 0f ]0ts in the town of Cahawba;  by which it is provided, among, other things, that a deduction of fifty per cent shall be granted to all purchasers or holders of lots, sold at said sale, on their paying into the Treasury of.the State the amount due on the 20th of May, 1822 ; that Rives, on said 20th of May, was the owner of lot 34, and on that day, availed himself of the provisions of said act, and obtained a deduction of fifty per cent on the sum then due the State; that the 5th section of said act, secures to purchasers of any part of'a lot so sold, all the terms and benefits thereby granted to original purchasers ; that he (defendant) was always, and now is ready to pay plaintiff the amount due by him according to the 5th section of said act; aíso a tender of the same before, action brought, and refusal by the plaintiff to receive, &c.; that he claimed the full amount, &c. The plaintiff filed a general replication, and a verdict was found for the plaintiff.
    On the trial the defendant offered to prove that the plaintiff had confessed that the facts set forth in the second plea of the defendant were time as therein stated. The Court on objection made, refused to permit the facts of the.plea to be proved in that manner. The defendant excepted, and brought the case to this Court, and now assigns for error that said testimony was proper and should have been received.
    Thorington, for the plaintiff in error.
    H. G. Perry, for the defendant.
    
      
      o Laws Ain. 828.
    
   By JUDGE WHITE.

By the 6th section of the act 1821, referred to, it is enacted that purchasers to obtain the benefit of its provisions, shall sign and file in the office of the Secretary of State, by the 20th of May, 1822, a declaration in writing, expressing their consent to the same, and that they shall pay to the Secretary for receiving, recording and filing the same, one dollar. If then the plaintiff below availed himself of the provisions of said act, as alleged in the second plea, there 'must have been written, if not record, evidence of that fact, accessible to the plaintiff in error, which he should have produced, or accounted for the non production of, before he.could, according to the rules of law, be permitted to give an inferior grade of evidence to the jury, in .support of his plea. We are therefore of .opinion that the Court below did not err in rejecting the testimony, and that the judgement must be affirmed.