Court Opinion

ID: 9808236
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:31:01.430473+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:10:16.678625
License: Public Domain

CoNNOK., J.,
concurring: For the reasons and upon the authorities cited in the opinion of Mr. Justice Brown, the Court below was in error in holding that the communication was privileged. I cannot assent to the suggestion that the Federal statute referred to can be invoked to show malice. I am unable to perceive how, in this Court and in this action, the statute has any bearing upon or connection with the case or its merits. While, for the purpose of enforcing obedience to public statutes, the courts, of necessity, have always held that every person was presumed to know the law, I cannot think that such presumption can be invoked for any other purpose or in any other jurisdiction than that of the government in whose courts its statutes are being enforced. The presumption used as a basis for visiting pains and penalties is sufficiently harsh and works sufficient hardship when confined within its legitimate sphere. To fix upon a person, for an act being litigated in a State Court, a malicious motive by reason of a presumption that he had actual knowledge of the existence and provisions of a Federal statute buried somewhere between the covers of one of three volumes of more than 1,300 pages each, is well calculated to make our jurisprudence a rock of offense and a pitfall of destruction to lawyers no less than laymen. I venture the suggestion that, except in the public and Federal Court libraries, there are not twenty-five copies of the Eevised Statutes in this State of two *46million souls. This statute is not invoked by counsel, and it is no reflection on tbeir learning to suppose that they did not know of its existence. Of course, when either the State or Federal Government, in its own courts, seeks to enforce its statutes, the presumption has its full and conclusive force; but to “call them in aid” in other courts and in civil actions is not only dangerous to the rights of the citizen, but conducive to jurisdictional conflict between the courts in our dual system of government. State courts can neither construe nor enforce Federal statutes. Under proper limitations, and with wise administration, these agencies of joroof, based upon long experience, are useful in the trial of causes; but, like “Actions” .and other expedients, they should be resorted to only to aid in the ascertainment of truth and the administration of substantial justice. With the enlightened relaxation of the rules of evidence and the tendency of the courts to permit the jury to hear all relevant testimony, the necessity for resorting to presumption largely disappears. We should endeavor to so try causes that the very truth of the matter shall be established by evidence and not by arbitrary presumptions. If, as a matter of fact, this defendant, as is quite certain, knew nothing of the statute sought to be used to his undoing, how is it possible that the animus with which he wrote and sent the postal card can be affected by it ? I am strongly inclined to think that, if it had been shoAvn that the money which was stolen from the plaintiff, or any part of it, belonged to the public school fund of Yadkin County, the postal addressed to the Superintendent of Education of that county by defendant, the Superintendent of Davie County, would have come within the principle of the authorities cited in the opinion as -a privileged communication. I think that both defendant and Martin, the addressee, had such relation to the school fund of either county as made it their duty to protect it, and, in good faith, seek its recovery if stolen or lost. I cannot forbear saying that, in my opinion, a postmaster or *47mail carrier who reads a postal card is guilty of a gross breach of duty. I do not assent to the suggestion that the contents of postal cards are not as sacred from officious interference as those of a letter. As the case goes back for a new trial, I forbear saying more.
Walker, J., concurs in opinion of OoNNOR, J.