Case ID: ohio_3/html/0346-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court :", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

David Richmond v. J. and A. Patterson.
    Declaration upon a note in writing need not allege consideration.
    Double replications to a plea no ground of error after verdict finding both true.
    Copies of records from another state, though sworn to, are not evidence until it be shown that the records themselves are kept under authority of law.
    This cause came before the court upon a writ of error, and was adjourned here for decision from Jackson county.
    In the original suit, J. and A. Patterson declared upon a note in writing, in these words: “That the defendant on August 30, 1818, by his note in writing, of that date duly executed, promised in ninety days after date to pay to the plaintiffs fifty-three dollars, without defalcation,” as by said note to the court shown appears.
    The defendant pleaded non-assumpsit and infancy. To the latter plea the plaintiffs replied, first, traversing the infancy. Secondly, that the articles for which the note was given wero necessaries suitable to the defendant’s condition. Issues were joined, and on the trial a verdict was found for the plaintiffs on them all.
    At the trial a bill of exceptions was taken by the defendant’s counsel to an opinion of the court, rejecting a deposition offered by them. This was the deposition of the town clerk of New Milford, in the State of Connecticut, proving the correctness of a copy from the records of that town, showing the entry of the time of the defendant’s birth. The court decided that it was inadmissible as evidence, without ^further proof, than it contained within itself, of the law of Connecticut with respect to keeping such records, as that of which this purported to be a copy. .
    The plaintiff in error assigned for error :
    That the declaration did not aver that the note was given for, any, or what consideration.
    That there were double replicatious to a single plea.
    That the deposition was erroneously rejected.
    Brazed, for plaintiff in error,
    in support of the first error, cited 7 Term, 346; 3 Burr. 1663; 2 Blac. Com. 445; 2 Day, 22; 7 Johns. 28; 13 Johns. 337; Chitty on Bills, 12-62; Com. Con. 10-13; 4 Johns. 235; 1 Fonb. Eq. 335. He contended that the point was not decided either in Mors v. M’Cloud, 2 Ohio, 5, or in Dugan v. Campbell, 1 Ohio, 115.
    In support of the second point, he cited 1 Chitty Plead. 566, where it is laid down that “ at common law, a replication can not be double, or containing two or more answers to the same plea, and the statute of 4 Ann, c. 16, does not extend to replications.”
    On the third point no argument was submitted, and none was submitted by the counsel for the defendant in error.
   By the Court :

In the case of Mors v. M’Cloud, it is distinctly stated that the mode of declaring pursued in this case is in accordance with a long-established practice, which the court were not at liberty to disturb. We adhere to that opinion, so that the exception to the declaration can not be sustained.

As to the double replications, a majority of the court think it now too late to take exception to them. Each contained a good answer to the defendant’s plea, and both are found, by the jury, to be true. There must be some strong ground, indeed, to induce us to reverse the plaintiff’s judgment, because it appears that he has two valid answers to the defense set up, when' either one would be sufficient for him.

Had the defendant wished to confine the plaintiff to one answer to his plea, he should have objected to the double replications before the trial, when the court would have compelled the plaintiff to confine his proof to one, and ordered the other to be struck from the record. By waiving this and *going to trial, the fact has been found that both replications are true. Under these circumstances, it is too late to disturb the verdict. It is to prevent confusion at the trial that duplicity in pleading is prohibited. The exception must be taken in season to effect this object, or it is too late.

The deposition was properly rejected. Until proof was adduced, that the record copied was kept under the authority of law, it was nothing. A sworn copy of a private paper is nothing without proof of the original being executed. So the copy in this case was inadmissible, until it was proven that the paper copied and alleged to be a record was legally entitled to 'that character. In the absence of this proof, the deposition was rightly rejected.

The judgment of the court of common pleas must be affirmed.