Mullen v. Morris

• Decision Date: 05 January 1845
• Citation: 2 Pa. 85
• Parties: MULLEN <I>v.</I> MORRIS.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

2 Pa. 85

MULLEN v. MORRIS.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

December 17, 1845.

January 5, 1845.

Dec. 17.

ERROR to the Common Pleas of Northampton county.

Maxwell and J. M. Porter, for plaintiff.—On the protest, Fitler v. Morris, 6 Wharton, 415. The offer to return was insufficient; it was his duty to collect. Chit. on Cont. 475, 534. Interest should have been according to the law of Pennsylvania. Story, Confl. Law, sect. 315.

Reeder, for defendant.—The protest was not shown to prove notice, which was shown aliunde. It is evidence. Morris v. Freeman, 1 Dall. 193; 20 Johns. 168, as to interest. The guarantee is of the drawee. Ludlow v. Bingham, 4 Dall. 61; Golden v. Price, 3 Watts C. C. Rep. 313; Story, Confl. Law, sects. 286, 291.

Jan. 5. BURNSIDE, J.

1. The only ground urged in this court, to maintain the first bill of exceptions, is, that the witness Peter Morris, who was the brother of John Morris, the plaintiff, was interested. We are unable to discover that he had any interest in the verdict.

2. The second exception was to the admission in evidence of the bill of exchange, and the certificate of protest accompanying it. The handwriting of Mullen, the drawer of the bill, had been proved. The deposition of Campbell, the New York notary, had been duly taken and was in evidence; proving that on the evening of the day he protested the bill, he put into the post-office of the city of New York notice of protest of the bill, directed to Patrick Mullen, Easton, Pennsylvania. The universal law is, that the seal of a notary public is judicially taken notice of by the courts; he being an officer recognised by the whole commercial world. 1 Greenleaf, Evid. 535. But the learned counsel complains, that the bill and protest were sent out with the jury. There was no special exception to the protest going out; nor would it have availed, for the universal practice of Pennsylvania is to send out with the jury all papers given in evidence; depositions are never sent, except by consent. The fact of notice to the drawer was proved by the oath of the notary as well as stated in his protest.

3. The plaintiff offered and gave in evidence a printed book, styled "The revised Laws of New York," and offered to read from page 771.

This forms the third bill of exceptions. In the Supreme Court of the United States, and I believe in every state of the Union, in accordance with the connection and constitutional ties binding them together, the rule has been relaxed, which requires foreign laws to be verified with the sanction of an oath: hence printed volumes, purporting to be on the face of them the laws of a sister state, are admissible as primâ facie evidence, to prove the statute laws of that state. 1 Greenleaf's Evid. sects. 488, 489; 4 Cranch, 384; 6 Binn. 321; 12 Serg. & Rawle, 203.

To the charge of the court, two errors have been assigned.

1. That the court erred "in what they said in the...