Court Opinion

ID: 9807789
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:15:43.668294+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:49:05.876154
License: Public Domain

Shepherd, J.
concurring as to the conclusion and dissenting as to parts of the opinion: I concur in the disposition made of this appeal, but I do not agree to the suggestion that what constitutes a diligent and reasonable search for an alleged lost paper-writing is in any case within the sole discretion of the trial Judge and that his ruling is conclusive upon that question. If such be the law, it would be exceedingly difficult to account for the numerous decisions of appellate Courts in the text-bookstand in our own Reports upon this important subject. The authorities cited do not, in my opinion, sustain such a principle, but on the contrary establish the very opposite view. When the testimony relating to the particulars of the search is conflicting, it is the duty of the Court, upon the request of the objecting party, to find the facts, and if no such request is made that aspect of the testimony which is most favorable to- the other party .will be taken by this Court in passing upon the ruling of the trial Judge.' Holden v. Purefoy, decided at this term.
The findings as to the facts are conclusive/but the legal inferences are reviewable.
Neither do I agree that a diligent search Was made in the present case and that oral testimony should have been admitted. Mr. Greenleaf (vol. 1, § 558) says, “that the evidence must show that a bona fide and diligent search has been unsuccessfully made (for the lost instrument) in the place where it is most likely to be found if the nature of the case admits of such proof.” The party must." exhaust in a reasonable degree all the sources of information and means of-discovery which the nature of the case would naturally suggest and which were accessible to him.” Ibid., Dumas v. Powell, 3 Dev., 103; Murphy v. McNiel, 2 D. & B., 244; *448Harper v. Hancock, 6 Ired., 124; Threadgill v. White, 11 Ired., 591; McCracken v. McCrary, 5 Jones, 399. The foregoing cases and many others to be found in our Reports, exemplify in a high degree the very strict application by this Court of the general principle above stated.
So far from the witness in this case having exhausted all of his sources of information, his examination reveals the two depositories of these very letters, and yet. he has examined but one of them. He says, “ I kept them in my trunk and sometimes in my wife’s trunk;” that is to say, either in one trunk or the other, and it is but fair to assume in the absence of an examination that the letters were in his wife’s trunk at .the time of the trial. It does seem very clear to me that there has been no such diligent search as is required by the law and that if oral testimony can be substituted for contractural writings under such circumstances, the rule as to the primariness of documentary evidence will be practically abrogated.
If, as in Davidson v. Norment, 5 Ired., 555, a party was required to go to another State and get his deed, it would seem but reasonable that this witness should have taken a few steps, presumably in his own house, and looked into his wife’s trunk for the letters in question. The case cited from 3 Dev., supra, also illustrates the great particularity of the Court in applying this most salutary rule of practice.
When contracts have been reduced to writing, there is an implied agreement between the parties, which the.law recognizes and enforces, that such contracts shall only be proved b}rthe selected medium of proof, and the “slippery memory of witnesses” should never be substituted, except upon the most imperative demands of necessity and justice.
As to the intensity of proof, 1 have never understood that in the case of a writing evidencing a purely simple contract, where the writing is lost or destroyed, and there is no evidence of fraudulent suppression or spoliation, a party is com*449pelled, in a Court of law, to establish its contents by the same degree of proof as is required in equity where lost bonds and other deeds are sought to be set up or corrected, as in the cases cited. The degree of proof mentioned is only applied in cases of equitable cognizance. See discussion in Harding v. Long, 103 N. C., 7.