Case Name: BALLARD et al. v. BEVERIDGE
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1899-12-08
Citations: 61 N.Y.S. 648
Docket Number: 
Parties: BALLARD et al. v. BEVERIDGE.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 61
Pages: 648–654

Head Matter:
BALLARD et al. v. BEVERIDGE.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.
December 8, 1899.)
Evidence—Res Gesm—Principal and Agent—Letters.
An agent’s letter to his principal, detailing the final settlement of an account he was authorized to effect, is inadmissible to prove such settlement, as a part of the res gestae.
Patterson, J., dissenting.
Appeal from trial term, New Y ark county.
Action by Virginius Ballard and others, as assignees, against Alven Beveridge. From judgment dismissing the complaint, plaintiffs appeal. Beversed.
Argued before VAN BRUNT, P. J., and BARRETT, RUMSEY, PATTERSON, and O’BRIEN, JJ.
Sullivan & Cromwell and Charles F. Brown, for appellants.
Eugene L. Bushe and David McClure, for respondent.

Opinion:
BARRETT, J.
I am unable to concur with Mr. Justice PATTERSON in this case. Reference to the facts upon which the former judgment was reversed (39 N. Y. Supp. 566) only tends to confuse the question presented by the present appeal. Our duty is simply, while following the rule of law laid down upon the former appeal, to decide whether the facts in this record bring the case within its application. The action is for the conversion of 400 shares of stock. The defendant denies the conversion, and alleges affirmatively an accord and satisfaction which embraced the shares alleged to have been converted. Upon the trial the plaintiffs gave evidence, amply sufficient to go to the jury, tending to establish the conversion. Yet they were nonsuited, the learned court being of the opinion that, in cross-examining the plaintiffs' witnesses, the defendant had succeeded in getting the accord and satisfaction into the plaintiffs' case and in establishing it so conclusively that there was not even a question for the jury on that head. The question now is, was the nonsuit justified by the proof as it then stood?
There was no proof of the accord and satisfaction as an independent fact. The alleged settlement rests wholly upon the declarations of an agent employed to negotiate it, made to his principal. Plainly, the letter in which this agent (Price) informs his principal (Duke) that one "Cromwell has settled the account with Beveridge" was inadmissible. It was a mere narrative of what had occurred. We do not know what had occurred or what had been settled. We only know what the agent says had occurred. His declarations, made concurrently with his acts or in the course of his negotiations, relating to, and connected with, the business then depending, were a part of the res gestae. But there were none such, and his declarations cannot create the res gestse. Whatever bargain was here made was made before Price wrote the letter in question to Duke. The declaration is therefore the narrative of a concluded bargain.
It was held in England, as long ago as the year 1812, that "letters of an agent to his principal, in which he is rendering him an account of the transactions performed for him, are not admissible in evidence against the principal." Langhorn v. Allnutt, 4 Taunt. 511-520. Lord Mansfield there said that such Getters are not a part of the res gestse, not letters written in the course of the transaction and forming a part of it, but a mere narrative." Chambre, J., said that the letters "were properly rejected; they are not a part of the res gestse, but merely an account of them, and upon no ground admissible." Cobbs, J., added:
"When it is proved, that A. is agent of B., whatever A. does or says or writes in.the making of a contract, as agent of B., is admissible in evidence, because it is part of the contract which he makes for B., and therefore binds B., but it is not admissible as his account of what passes. Now, what are these letters? They are not part of the contract itself or of the res gestae, but they are the account which the agent rendered to his principal of what he is doing. They are not, therefore, admissible."
Lord Mansfield, in his opinion, referred to the case of Fairlie v. Hastings, 10 Yes. 123, where the master of the rolls, Sir William Grant, examined the cases on this point. In the latter case the master of the rolls put the doctrine in these clear words:
"The admission of an agent cannot be assimilated to the admission of the principal. A party is bound by his own admission, and is not permitted to contradict it. But it is impossible to say a man is precluded from questioning or contradicting anything any person has asserted to him, as to his conduct or his agreement, merely because that person has been an agent oí his. If any fact material to the interest of either party rests in the knowledge of an agent, it is to be proved by his testimony, not by his mere assertion. Lord Kenyon carried this so far as to refuse to permit a letter by an agent to be read to prove an agreement by the principal. Maesters v. Abraham, 1 Esp.-375. If the agreement was contained in the letter, I should have thought it sufficient to have proved that the letter was written by the agent. But, if the letter was offered as proof of the contents of a pre-existing agreement, then it was properly rejected."
While the precise question does not seem to have been decided in this country, the English rule is clearly within the general principles which have been laid down here with regard to the declarations of agents. The declaration here was not made in the course of any proved negotiation. It did not characterize any proved act. It was not the act itself, nor any part thereof. The agreement was not contained in the letter. The latter was plainly information as to a preexisting concluded agreement, and was mere hearsay. It was, in fact, hearsay upon hearsay, as it merely purported to declare to the principal what Cromwell had declared to the agent.
It is said that Duke received and accepted the stock, check, and notes referred to in the letter, but of that there is no evidence. The stocks and check were retained by the agent,—so the letter states,— and the notes, though purporting therein to be forwarded,, were not brought home to Duke. The latter's bookkeeper, who was the only witness on that subject, testified that he did not remember whether .he'received them or not. The receipt and acceptance of these securities by Duke could not be proved by the agent's declaration, any more than the settlement itself. As the letter was, in my judgment, inadmissible, I shall not consider its effect. I do not wish, however, in refraining from a discussion on that head, to be understood as concurring in Mr. Justice PATTERSON'S opinion that it conclusively established the accord and satisfaction pleaded, and that that accord and satisfaction embraced the 400 shares of stock in question.
The order should be reversed, and a new trial ordered, with costs to the appellant to abide the event.
RUMSEY and O'BRIEN, JJ., concur. VAN BRUNT, P. J., concurs in result.