Bryan v. Farnsworth

• Decision Date: 01 January 1874
• Citation: 19 Minn. 198
• Parties: ORLANDO M. BRYAN and others v. CHANDLER FARNSWORTH.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

19 Minn. 198

ORLANDO M. BRYAN and othersv.

CHANDLER FARNSWORTH.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Appeal by defendant from a judgment of the district court, Blue Earth county.

The plaintiff recovered judgment before a justice of the peace, from which the defendant appealed, upon questions of law alone, to the district court, where the judgment was affirmed.

Severance & Dickinson, for appellant.

W. L. Coon and Brown & Wiswell, for respondents.

RIPLEY, C. J.

To prove the judgment of the justice of the peace of De Kalb county, Illinois, upon which the action was brought, the plaintiff offered in evidence what purported to be a transcript thereof, to which the following certificates were attached:

"I, Tyler K. Waite, a justice of the peace in and for the county aforesaid, do certify that the foregoing transcript is a true copy of the docket entry upon the docket of Abram Conant, deceased, and of the records, papers, and files in case wherein Orlando M. Bryan, John B. Harkness, and John Hanone are plaintiffs, and Chandler Farnsworth defendant, remaining and being in my office and under my control, so full and entire as the same therein appear and remain. That the same docket, record, papers, and files came into my possession on the death of said Abram Conant, late a justice of the peace in and for said county, I being the nearest justice of the peace, and as such entitled to the custody thereof; and I ever have been, and still am, since his death, the proper custodian of said docket, records, papers, and files. That justices of the peace in the state of Illinois do not, by law, have any clerk or official seal, and that, as said justice of the peace, I have no clerk or official seal, and that this attestation is in due form. And I further certify that I am well acquainted with the handwriting of said Abram Conant, deceased, and that said docket entry * * * are in the genuine handwriting of the said Abram Conant. Given under my hand and seal, at Sycamore, in said county, this fourteenth day of October, A. D. 1870.

                         TYLER K. WAITE, (scroll,) Justice of the Peace."
                

"I, Wallace M. More, clerk of the county court in and for the county aforesaid, do hereby certify that at the time of the several dates of the docket entries, summons and execution, copied in the foregoing transcript, Abram Conant, Esq., whose name as acting justice of the peace in and for the county of De Kalb and state of Illinois, duly elected and qualified, and that Tyler K. Waite, Esq., whose name is subscribed to the annexed certificate to said transcript, was, at the time of executing the same, an acting justice of the peace in and for said county, duly commissioned, sworn, and authorized to take and certify the same, and full faith and credit is due to all his official acts; that I am well acquainted with his handwriting, and that his signature thereto is genuine, and that the annexed instrument is executed and acknowledged in conformity with the laws of the state of Illinois.

"In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of the said county court this fourteenth day of October, A. D. 1870.

                   "[Official Seal.]            WALLACE M. MORE, Clerk."
                

Which evidence was admitted by the justice before whom the case was tried, the defendant's objections thereto being overruled.

The action of the justice was affirmed in the district court upon the ground that the evidence was admissible under Gen. St. c. 73, § 80. This reads as follows:

"An exemplification of a judgment rendered by any justice of the peace, in any state or territory of the United States, officially certified by such justice as a full and correct copy of all the proceedings in that case from his docket, with a certificate of magistracy thereon, signed and authenticated by a clerk of a court of record in the county where such judgment was rendered, with the seal thereof attached, is evidence in any court in this state to prove the facts contained in such exemplification."

It is admitted that this transcript does not fall within the terms of the statute. It is said, however, to be within its spirit, for to give a literal interpretation to statutes of this kind would make it impossible in any case to procure a transcript from the docket of a deceased justice. If there were no other way of proving the fact of the rendition of such a judgment, a very different question might present itself. But as this is readily provable by common-law methods, nothing in the nature of the case...