Case Name: Dr. H. V. Toomer v. James S. Gadsden
Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1850-01
Citations: 4 Strob. 193
Docket Number: 
Parties: Dr. H. V. Toomer v. James S. Gadsden.
Judges: Richardson, O’Neall and Wardlaw, JJ. concurred.
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 35
Pages: 193–196

Head Matter:
Dr. H. V. Toomer v. James S. Gadsden.
If account books offered in evidence are so kept as to be intelligible, there is no reason why they should not be equally admissible whether kept by double Or single entries, or by setting apart a page or part of a page, for each customer, and exhibiting in one view the whole account.
To make an account book evidence, all that our cases seem to require, are that the book be regularly kept, and that it be the book of original entries. The evidence offered must not be loose memoranda, not a book into which the charges have been transferred from some other book, but the book in which the entries are made cotemporaneously with the facts which they record.
Before Frost, J. at Charleston, October, 1849.
This action was brought to recover $155, for medical attendance on Charlotte, the slave of defendant. The plaintiff was offered to prove his demand, by his book. On inspection, it appeare¿ that the book was not kept in the form of a day 'book, with the charges entered successively, as services were rendered; but that it was kept asa ledger, with accounts opened against various persons, in which they were charged with medical services. The book was not admitted, because a book, so kept, is not such a book of original entries as the law requires to be kept in order to supply, with the oath of the plaintiff, evidence of his demand.
G. L. Meyer was then called, who had lived with the plaintiff six years, being, at the time of his examination, twenty-one years of age. He said that, in 1844, Charlotte was brought to the house of plaintiff, in a deplorable condition, and so continued for nine months, unable to leave her chamber, and seldom leaving her bed. That she had abscesses; of which he saw only one; was loathsome and offensive ; required nursing and constant attention; did nothing but vomit and grunt all the time she continued with the plaintiff. About six weeks or two months before she left the plaintiff, she recovered so far as to walk about the yard, and possibly go into the street. Her services were not, then, worth fifty cents a month. He testified that medicines and attendance to an amount and value equal to the charges in the account filed, were rendered. He prepared the medicines.
The defendant claimed wages for the plaintiff, from September, 1844, to December 31st, 1846, when Charlotte was returned to him by the plaintiff.
Moore testified, that in the spring, he thought, of 1845. he was at Stoll’s, when the plaintiff came there, with his child, and Charlotte attending it. He asked Toomer whose servant that was, and Toomer said the defendant’s; and added, he had attended her at Gadsden’s, and had taken her, and was to charge nothing for his services. That he had had her near two years, and her services were worth five dollars a month. Charlotte looked rather feeble; she could take up and cairy the child, which was running about. Toomer said he had been attending Charlotte at Gadsden’s and had persuaded Gadsden to send her to his house and he would charge nothing for medical attendance. /Stoll related the conversation with Toomer very much as Moore had stated it. Stoll was then intimate with Toomer; was god-father to the child. Since that time he and Toomer had quarreled, and are inimical. He added to Moore’s statement that Toomer spoke of his agreement with Gadsden as a good bargain. He was frequently at Toomer’s house; saw Charlotte minding the child, who carried it down stairs and about the yard; never saw her in a sickly state; from her appearance, supposed Charlotte to be sound. Dr. Ramsay testified that, in September or October, 1846, Gadsden sent Charlotte to him to give an opinion respecting her soundness, with a view to the sale of her. She came into the room in which he was sitting, and after asking her some questions, he thought no further examination necessary. Her personal appearance was good, and she was a fiue looking servant. She said she had suffered from catamenial obstruction, but was better. He thought her worth 400 or 500 dollars, and her wages to be seven dollars a month. Soon after Toomer met the witness, and said he wanted to buy Charlotte, and desired Ramsay to give a certificate that Charlotte was sound. This Ramsay refused to do, saying to Toomer that his own opportunities of forming an opinion should satisfy him. He told Toomer that he thought Charlotte perfectly sound. Toomer did not dissent from this opinion ; but he told Ramsay of the disease Charlotte had suffered from; and from Toomer’s account of the case, he'thought the cure very wonderful.
A letter from Toomer to Gadsden, dated 31st December, 1846, wherein he notifies Gadsden of the return of Charlotte, under the belief Gadsden declined to sell her. Gadsden was also informed that Mrs. Toomer would settle the wages due for six weeks, or two months. The testimony for the plaintiff, in reply, would not materially change the case stated.
The jury found a verdict for the defendant.
The plaintiff appealed and moved for a new trial, on the grounds:
1st. That his Honor erred in excluding the plaintiff’s book of entries.
2d. Because the verdict was contrary to law.
Richardson, for the motion.
Phillips, contra.

Opinion:
Curia, per Evans, J.
To make an account book evidence, all that our cases seem to require, are that the book be regularly kept and that it be the book of original entries. The evidence offered must not be loose memoranda, such as the pedlar's case reported in 2 Hill, 678, nor a book into which the charges have been transferred from some other book or memorandum, but the book in which the entries are made co-temporaneously with the facts which they record. Now it seems to me all these requisites may exist as well when the accounts are kept in what I have heard called a petty ledger, as in this case, as when the entries are first made in the form of a day book and transferred to the journal and ledger. From my own expeiience and that of most of the members of this Court, I am satisfied that this form of keeping accounts is very often used, and to reject it now would deprive a great number of persons, especially professional men, mechanics, and small dealers, of their legal right of proving their accounts by their books. In the case of Hurtz v. Neufville, reported in a note to Harris v. Caldwell, the book of the plain tiff was objected to as being, on the face of it, not a regular tradesman's book in which entries are made in a certain order, but consisting of loose memoranda relating to business. In delivering the opinion of the Court Judge Johnson says the manner of keeping the book is very unmercantile, and would perhaps shock a regular clerk, but the Court do not feel at liberty to prescribe the mode in which merchants and shopkeepers shall keep their books. The best informed among them would perhaps differ about this matter, and if they are so kept as to be intelligible, I see no reason why they should not be equally admissible whether kept by double or single entries, or, as in this case, by setting apart a page or part of a page for each customer, and exhibiting at one view the whole account. This, in my judgment, is a correct exposition of the law as settled by the decided cases. Books thus kept are evidence to go to the jury, who are to judge whether the charged were made consecutively as the services were rendered, or whether the entries were manufactured to support a false account. As we cannot undertake to say that this evidence would not have varied materially the case made, there must be a new trial, and the motion is granted.
Richardson, O'Neall and Wardlaw, JJ. concurred.
Motion granted.