Comstock v. Smith

• Decision Date: 10 May 1870
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Charles H. Comstock, Administrator of Addison J. Comstock, deceased, v. Medora E. Smith

20 Mich. 338

Charles H. Comstock, Administrator of Addison J. Comstock, deceased, v. Medora E. Smith

Supreme Court of Michigan

May 10, 1870

Heard April 22, 1870; April 23, 1870.

Error to Lenawee Circuit.

This case came into the Circuit Court for the County of Lenawee by appeal from the disallowance by commissioners, appointed by the Probate Court of that county, of a claim presented by Medora E. Smith, against the estate of Addison J. Comstock deceased, arising upon a mortgage executed by the deceased and Darius C. Jackson, on the 25th day of January, 1866, then of the village of Oil Springs, in the Province of Canada conditioned for the payment "of two thousand dollars of lawful money of Canada," and which the mortgagors covenanted to pay. An issue was formed in the Circuit Court for a trial by a jury; the defense being, that the mortgage was given on the purchase of the property described in it the value of which was fraudulently misrepresented by the agent of the claimant, and by means of which misrepresentations, the deceased and Jackson had been induced to purchase the property. The jury found a verdict for the claimant.

The cause now comes into this Court by writ of error, the errors being assigned upon the rulings of the Circuit Courts in the admission of testimony, and upon the charge of the Court instructing the jury, "that if the plaintiff (below) was entitled to recover upon the proofs in the case, for breach of the contract declared on, it being payable in the lawful money of Canada, she was entitled to recover the present value of Canada currency as compared with legal tender notes of the United States; that is, that she was entitled to the premium which Canada money was then worth over United States legal tender notes, and that if the plaintiff had proved Canada money to be worth any sum above legal tender notes, the jury should add that sum to their verdict."

Judgment of the Circuit Court affirmed with costs.

A. L. Millard and Eldridge & Walker, for plaintiff in error.

Robinson & Brooks, for defendant in error.

Graves, J. Campbell, Ch. J. and Cooley, J. concurred. Christiancy, J. concurring in part and dissenting in part.

OPINION

Graves, J.

The defendant in error presented a claim before the commissioners appointed to examine and adjust claims against the estate of Addison J. Comstock, deceased, and the same was disallowed, whereupon the complainant appealed to the Circuit Court.

An issue was made up in that Court under the statute and tried before a jury, who returned a verdict for the claimant; and the administrator of the estate has brought the case to this Court, upon exceptions to the admission of evidence and the charge to the jury. The claim litigated in the Court below was upon a covenant by decedent and others to defendant in error, contained in a mortgage made in Canada on the 25th of January, 1866, on an acre and a half of oil land, on which were two oil wells, and which mortgage and covenant were intended to secure in part the payment of the purchase price of the premises and certain personal property included in the trade. The covenant stipulated that the covenantors should pay to the covenantee, the complainant, two thousand dollars of lawful money of Canada, with interest at seven per centum, as follows: One third of said sum of two thousand dollars in six months from date; one-third in twelve months from date, and the remaining one-third in eighteen months from date, with interest at said rate on the unpaid balance, when the payments should fall due respectively. The chief defense, as stated in a special notice attached to the plea, was, that on the sale of the property of which the money specified in the covenant was in part the consideration, the claimant, Mr. Smith, made certain fraudulent representations, by which the covenantors were damnified to an amount beyond the sum called for by the covenant. The errors assigned are very numerous, but we do not think it necessary to notice them in detail. The first was abandoned on the argument, and the residue may be examined under two general heads.

The questions which properly arrange themselves under the first head relate to the evidence given and requisite to ascertain the amount called for, in this State, by this Canadian contract, and the charge of the Court as to the rule of damages.

It was urged on the trial, and is insisted upon here by plaintiff in error, that the covenant called for a sum in the legal money of Canada. That in order to fix the value in our money of the sum specified by the covenant, it was necessary to ascertain what was lawful money in Canada; that it was to be presumed that what was lawful money in Canada was the subject of positive written law in the Province, and that as a consequence it was incumbent on the claimant to make proof of that law by an exemplification or sworn copy, or in some other established mode.

The view we take of the general question makes it unimportant to consider the validity of the points most pressed by the plaintiff in error in this branch of the case. The force and effect of the covenant were in no degree altered by the words "of lawful money of Canada," since, without these words it must have been intended that the agreement made, and to be performed in Canada, contemplated a payment of the given sum in dollars of legal money of the Province.

The case may therefore be regarded as though the words "of lawful money of Canada" had not been in the instrument. The end to be attained upon the trial, in relation to that part of the case we are now considering, was to ascertain the amount of damages or claims to which the claimant would be entitled in this State, and the enquiry necessary to attain the end did not involve the proof of the law of Canada. We are not aware that it has ever been thought necessary in suits in our courts on foreign contracts, when the amount is expressed in sterling money, or other foreign denomination, to require proof of the foreign laws, in order to ascertain the damages to be awarded in American money; and we think no such rule exists anywhere.

It is therefore our opinion, that in this case nothing more was required than to show those facts as to the comparative value of the money of Canada, and of this country, which would enable the jury to express in our money a sum equivalent to that called for in the foreign money. Upon the nature of the evidence bearing upon this question, a few words will be necessary. We think the inquiry to which this evidence belongs is quite analogous to that involved in cases where the market value of chattels is to be ascertained by evidence, and that the employment of the same methods to prove the value here of foreign money, as are authorized to prove the marketable value of commodities at a distance, would, by reason of the greater stability and uniformity of value of money, be less likely to lead to erroneous results, than when used to find the value of such commodities.

The general principle, therefore, which governs, in proving the value of chattels in a distant market, may be applied with safety to a matter like that before us, where the foreign State is a near neighbor, and where the money transactions between the two countries are of hourly occurrence.

We shall refer to but two or three cases to illustrate our view of the appropriateness of the material evidence on the trial, bearing on the question we are now considering.

In Sisson v. Toledo R. R. Co., 14 Mich. 489, it was held competent to prove the market value of cattle in Albany and New York, as derived from the newspapers in which the state of the market was published daily.

In re Cliquot's Champagne, 70 U.S. 114, 3 Wall. 114, the Supreme Court of the United States determined that prices current obtained in France, from the agent of a manufacturer or from dealers in the manufactured articles generally, and which had been prepared and used by parties furnishing them in the ordinary course of their business, were admissible to prove the value of wines in France.

In Kermott v. Ayer, 11 Mich. 181, a witness having testified that he had had several business transactions with attorneys and lawyers in Canada, and in that way had occasion to learn the value of Canadian and Halifax currency in common use there, as compared with our own, it was considered by this Court that it was competent for him to testify to the value of Canada money, and to state its equivalent in our own.

The principle of these decisions justified the evidence given on the trial by the witnesses as to the value here of the money called for, in Canada, by the covenant on which the defendant in error...