Bryant v. Kelton
| Decision Date | 31 December 1846 |
| Citation | 1 Tex. 434 |
| Parties | ALEXANDER BRYANT v. OLIVER P. KELTON |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Appeal from Montgomery.
Sworn copies of the records of another country can be given in evidence, when the better testimony cannot be procured; but before they can be admitted it must be shown by proof aliunde that the record from which the copy purports to have been taken was the record of the court. It must also be shown that the law authorized such records to be made, and required such instruments to be recorded.
The presumptions in favor of the record of a deed or bill of sale, when offered in evidence, are not so strong of its being in conformity to law, as they are in favor of judgments. In the latter case, the presumptions are in favor of the jurisdiction of the court, and that its proceedings are legal until the contrary is shown.
Foreign laws must be proved as other facts. A statute, by the production of the statute and usage that has acquired the force of the law, must be proved as such.
To enable this court to revise the decision of a lower court in excluding testimony, the relevancy of the testimony to the issue must appear on the record.
Trial of the right of property. The appellant, having an execution against one Milton S. Kelton, caused it to be levied on a negro boy named Moses. The negro was claimed by Oliver P. Kelton to be his property.
At the trial the appellant, after accounting for the absence of the original, by denying it to be in his possession, offered as evidence the copy of a bill of sale from one Robert Kelton to Milton S. Kelton, for the negro in controversy, which purported to have been taken from the records of the superior court of Bibb county, in the state of Georgia. The clerk certified, under the seal of the court, that it was a true copy taken from the records of his office, and the governor of Georgia certified, under the seal of the state, that the individual who certified as clerk was the clerk of Bibb superior court. The signatures of the clerk and governor, and the seals of the court and state, were proved; and it was also proved that the copy offered in evidence had been compared by the witness with the record, and that it was a true copy of the record. The witness also testified that the person who gave the certificate as clerk was the clerk of the court at the time he signed the same, and as such, recorder of all deeds, bills of sale, etc. The testimony was ruled out by the judge, and the appellant excepted to the decision. The case was tried at the spring term of 1843 of the district court.
B. C. Franklin, for appellant.
No brief filed.
J. Webb, for appellee.
Brief omitted.
This suit was on the issue made up under the statute to try the...
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Armendiaz v. La Serna
...The court erred in its ruling based upon the alleged foreign law without proof of what that law was. 1 Greenl. secs. 486-488; Bryant v. Kelton, 1 Tex. 434;Crosby v. Huston, 1 Tex. 203. It is further submitted, that the court below erred in the harsh construction given to the fifth of the ru......
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Hunter v. West
...that it be proved by a duly authenticated copy of the statute.' 20 Am.Jur. 371, Evidence, § 413. This rule is followed in Texas. Bryant v. Kelton, 1 Tex. 434; Martin v. Payne, 11 Tex. 292; Mexican Nat. R. Co. v. Ware, Tex.Civ.App., 60 S.W. 343; Vickers v. Faubion, Tex.Civ.App., 224 S.W. 803......
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Morgan v. Republic Texas
...LIPSCOMB delivered the opinion of the court. This question underwent the most patient and thorough investigation in the case of Bryant v. Kelton, 1 Tex. 434, at the last term, and the opinion of the court in that case settles the law on sound principles. According to the rule then laid down......