Case Name: EWING v. THE UNITED STATES
Court: District of Columbia Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: District of Columbia
Decision Date: 1894-06-04
Citations: 3 D.C. App. 353
Docket Number: No. 269
Parties: EWING v. THE UNITED STATES.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia
Volume: 3
Pages: 353–360

Head Matter:
EWING v. THE UNITED STATES.
Transcripts of Government Records.
1. Where in a suit by the United States on the bond of an alleged defaulting officer, a transcript duly certified from the Treasury Department, containing a number of exhibits, including a copy of the bond and copies of other official papers and accounts, purporting to show a balance due the United States from the defendant, is, as a whole, on objection, excluded from evidence, it is improper to admit in evidence any of the exhibits or portions of the transcript separately. Transcripts of government records to be admissible in evidence must be certified to or authenticated as required by R. S. U. S., Secs. 882 or 886.
2. Transcripts of government accounts when presented in court for the consideration of a jury should present such a plain statement of debits and credits as can be comprehended without difficulty by any person of ordinary intelligence.
No. 269.
Submitted May 18, 1894.
Decided June 4, 1894.
Hearing on a bill of exceptions by the defendant in a suit by the United States on a bond.
Judgment reversed.
The Court in its opinion stated the case as follows:
James M. Ewing, one of the appellants, on the 23d day of October, A. D. 1882, was appointed disbursing clerk of the Department of Justice, and as such he gave bond, dated Nov. 3, 1882, with the other appellants as sureties, for the faithful performance of his duties. He remained in office until May 8, A. D. 1888, when he was summarily dismissed and refused access to his room or to the safe in the department in which he had kept his money, check-books and memoranda of disbursements. These seem all to have been taken into the possession of the special agents of the department, or of the Treasury Department. Ewing was found or alleged to be a defaulter to the United States, and the amount of his deficiency was stated by the accounting officers of the Treasury to be $9,303.70. Suit was thereupon entered against him and his sureties on their bond in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.
At the trial, after proof of the appointment of Ewing as disbursing clerk of the Department of Justice, there was offered in evidence what purported to be a transcript from the Treasury Department, containing a copy of the bond, some certificates and affidavits connected therewith, five exhibits purporting to be statements of account between Ewing and the United States, some letters from the accounting officers to Ewing and his sureties, and seventy-three accounts current — the whole purporting to show a balance due from Ewing to the United States, as before stated. To the admission of this transcript, which seems to have been certified in due form, there was objection by the defendants, on what ground does not very distinctly appear, and it is not very material in our present inquiry; and the objection was sustained by the court and the transcript excluded.
On behalf of the plaintiffs, the copy of the bond contained in the transcript was then offered in evidence, without objection on the part of the defendants. Certain indorsements thereon were also read in evidence. Then the plaintiffs offered in evidence the five exhibits contained in the transcript purporting to be statements of account between Ewing and the United States, or rather “ balances on account,” as they are entitled, and also the several other papers in detail, and all these were admitted by the court over the objection of the defendants, based upon the ground that the transcript so made up in court was not the transcript made up by the Treasury Department, which, when duly made up and certified, the law authorizes to be used in evidence. And this was all the testimony for the plaintiffs.
Then the defendants, after a motion for a verdict in their favor, which was overruled, offered to prove, by the testi mony of the defendant Ewing, that all money which he had drawn from the Treasury Department and which he had not properly disbursed was in the safe of the Department of Justice at the time the officers or special agents took possession of it; that the vouchers transmitted to the Treasury showed the proper disbursement of all the money drawn by him from the Treasury except what was then in the safe; and that, at the time of his removal, he was denied access to the safe and its contents, and all. opportunity to examine the check books and vouchers therein contained, and to be present at the counting of the money there deposited. This offer of proof was refused by the court, on the ground that it implied a set-off or credit on the part of the defendants against the United States, which was inadmissible under the fourth section of the act of Congress of March 3, 1797 (1 Stat., p. 575), introduced into the Revised Statutes as Section 951, unless previously presented to the accounting officers for their examination. To this ruling the defendants excepted.
There being no further testimony, the court, over the objection of the defendants, instructed the jury to render a verdict for the plaintiffs in the sum of the penalty of the bond, with interest thereon from the day of the institution of the suit, January 8, A. D. 1889. And to this direction of the court exception was also taken. Judgment was entered for the plaintiffs, and the defendants have appealed to this court.
Mr. A. S. Worthington and Mr. Wyman L. Cole for the appellants.
Mr. A. B. Duvall, Speciál Assistant United States Attorney, D. C., for the United States:
1. The transcript, excluding the three items ruled out, was properly admitted in evidence. Betchel v. United States, 101 U. S., 597; Bruce v. United States, 17 How., 437; United States v. Hunt, 105 U. S., 187, 188; United States v. Gaus-sen, 19 .Wall., 213.
2. There was no error in instructing the jury to allow interest from the 8th day of January, 1889, the date of issuing the writ in this case. The debt was then due. The writ was a demand for its payment on that day, and thenceforth the defendants were in default. Murfree, Official Bonds, Sec. 689; U. S. v. Hills, 4 Clif. C. C., 623 ; The Wanata, 95 U. S., 612; U S. v. Curtis, 100 U. S., 119; Ives v. Merchants’ Bank, 12 How., 164.
3. There was no error in the refusal of the court to allow the defendant Ewing to testify that he had filed proper vouchers, that he had money and vouchers in his office safe when he was removed, that he had not appropriated any government money, and that he had properly accounted for all public money except the cash he left in the safe. Each of these offers was to establish “ a claim for a credit.” Sec. 951, R. S. U. S., provides the only way in which such a claim can be considered. Halliburton v. United States, 13 Wall., 65 ; U. S. v. Gilmore, 7 Wall., 493, 494; Cox v. U. S., 69 Pet., 202; U S. v. Hawkins, 10 Pet., 133; R. R. Co.' v. U. S., 101 U. S., 548-9; Watkms v. U S., 9 Wall., 763-5 ; U S. v. Buchanan, 8 How., 106; U. S. v. Hawkins, 10 Pet., 133.
The declaration claimed $10,000, the penalty of the bond, and costs of suit. No claim was made in it for interest. — Reporter.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Morris
delivered the opinion of the Court:
There are thirteen assignments of error, but the questions involved in them may be reduced to three:
1. Whether the court below was right in admitting in' evidence the exhibits and othe'r papers culled from the transcript transmitted from the Treasury Department.
2. Whether it was right in excluding Ewing's testimony on the ground that it tended merely to establish a claim on his part for credit.
3. Whether the court was right in directing the allowance of interest from the date of the institution of the suit. 1st. As to the admission in evidence of the papers from the Treasury Department We fail to see how these papers are admissible upon any rational theory of the law of evidence. The transcript, as a whole, having been ruled out by the court — and with the propriety of that ruling we have nothing to do here — the exhibits were offered severally. These papers stood alone. They did not purport to be transcripts of or from anything in the Treasury Department. They were not certified by any one. The first of them, designated as " Exhibit A," purported to be " Balances on account of James M. Ewing, late Disbursing Clerk, Department of Justice, as shown by the Book of the Register of the Treasury, this date." It contained, in order not very clear and specifications not very intelligible, some items of debit and credit, that apparently leave a balance due from Ewing to the United States amounting to $9,303.70. And appended to it is the following: "First Comptroller's Office-, September 1, 1888. The foregoing statement has been examined at this office and found correct. M. J. Durham, Comptroller. By J. R. Garrison, Deputy Comptroller." This is all there is of it. The other four exhibits are substantially in the same form, and the succeeding papers that were admitted do not greatly differ in form from the five principal exhibits.
Now it is very plain that these papers are not proper evidence for any purpose. The rules of evidence in suits between the United States and individuals are in general the same as in suits between individuals. When the United States become suitors, either in their own or other courts, there is no law for them different from the law that governs other judicial proceedings. But for obvious reasons the legislative power has deemed it proper that in suits by the United States against persons accountable for public money,' copies or transcripts might be substituted in the first instance for original papers, documents and books of account; and to that extent the law of evidence has been modified in those cases.
Section 886 of the Revised Statutes provides as follows:
" When suit is brought in any case of delinquency of a revenue officer, or other person accountable for public money, a transcript from the books and proceedings of the Treasury Department, certified by the Register, and authenticated under the seal of the department, or when the suit involves the accounts of the War or Navy Departments, certified by the auditors respectively charged with the examination of those accounts, and authenticated under the seal of the Treasury Department, shall be admitted as evidence, and the court trying the cause shall be authorized to grant judgment and award execution accordingly. And all copies of bonds, contracts or other papers relating to or connected with the settlement of any account between the United States and an individual, when certified by the Register or such Auditor, as the case may be, to be true copies of the originals on file, and authenticated under the seal of the department, may be annexed to such transcripts, and shall have equal validity, and be entitled to the same degree of credit which would be due to the original papers if produced and authenticated in court."
The exhibits and papers that were offered in evidence in this case were not certified by the Register, and were not authenticated by the seal of the Treasury Department; and, * therefore, they were not entitled to be admitted. Neither, for a similar reason, are they admissible under Section 882 of the Revised Statutes, which provides that " Copies of any books, records, papers or documents in any of the executive departments, authenticated under the seals of such departments, respectively, shall be admitted in evidence equally with the originals thereof." These exhibits do not purport to be copies of anything; nor are they authenticated by the seal of any department.
If authority be needed in support of the plain provision of the statutes, we need only refer to the case of the U. S. v. Pinson, 102 U. S., 548, where, in accordance with numerous precedents, it is held that even a paper purporting to be a full transcript is not admissible in evidence, unless it is prop erly authenticated. It is believed that no warrant can be found in any of the authorities for culling excerpts from a rejected transcript and putting them in evidence without authentication of any kind; and we cannot sanction any such mode of making up a transcript in court and using the combination as a substitute for the transcript authorized by law.
Some criticism was made of the mode of stating the accounts in the Treasury in this case. As was remarked by Mr. Justice Hunt, speaking for the Supreme Court in the case of the U. S. v. Gaussen, 19 Wall., 198, the courts are not authorized to regulate the manner in which the departments shall keep their books, or to prescribe the minuteness of the detail in which their statements and transcripts should be presented. Yet it is not assuredly too much to require that, when these transcripts are presented in court for the consideration of a jury, they should present such a plain statement of debits and credits as could be comprehended without difficulty by any person of ordinary intelligence. There is no'good reason why the accounts of the United States with an individual should be unreasonably complicated beyond the accounts of private individuals with each other. The law does not require that these transcripts should be full and complete copies of all the accounts of the parties with the department. There is all the more reason, therefore, why they should be put in simple and intelligible shape, within reach of the common understanding. These remarks are directed as much to the future proceedings in this case as to the record now before us. For in the view which we take of the case, it is unnecessary for us to examine more minutely into the character of the papers offered in evidence in order to determine whether they are such transcripts as the law authorizes to be introduced. Being of the opinion that they have not been properly authenticated, and are therefore inadmissible in evidence, and inasmuch as without them the cause of the plaintiffs would necessarily fail for want of evidence, we must hold that there was fatal error in the ruling of the court below in regard to them. Its judgment, therefore, must be reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial.
2. In view of our decision of the first question, it seems to be unnecessary to pass upon the other questions involved. As there may be merit in the defense set up, the defendant Ewing will have an opportunity, before a new trial of the case is had, to bring himself within the provisions of the act of 1797 and of Section 951 of the Revised Statutes, by presenting his claim to the accounting officer of the Treasury, and thereby obviating the formal objection to its admissibility.
3. As to the allowance of interest which was made by the court below, while it is possible that this question may not arise on a new trial, inasmuch as we are not to anticipate that the verdict and judgment upon such new trial will be for the plaintiffs, it is not improper to suggest that an amendment of the declaration is expedient, so that the claim of interest should be made in it as a basis for the allowance of such interest in the verdict and judgment, if the plaintiffs should be found entitled to recover.
In accordance with the views which we have here expressed, the judgment of the court below is reversed; and the cause is remanded to that court with directions to set aside the verdict and to award a new trial.