Vogel v. D. M. Osborne & Co
| Decision Date | 09 June 1884 |
| Citation | 20 N.W. 129,32 Minn. 167 |
| Parties | Joseph Vogel v. D. M. Osborne & Co |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Plaintiff brought this action in the district court for Otter Tail county, to recover damages for a breach of warranty alleged to have been made by defendant (a corporation) upon a sale of a binder. The action was tried before Collins, J and a jury, and plaintiff had a verdict. Defendant appeals from an order refusing a new trial.
Order reversed.
Jackson & Pond, for appellant.
J. W Mason, for respondent.
Under the pleadings on which this action was tried, one of the material issues was whether defendants had sold to plaintiff a certain harvester and binder. The original answer, signed and verified by one of defendants' attorneys of record, admitted this fact. An amended answer was subsequently interposed, which put the fact in issue. On the trial the court, against defendants' objection and exception, admitted the original answer in evidence as an admission by them. No evidence was introduced to show that this admission was inserted in the original pleading with the knowledge, or by the direction of, the defendants. Was this evidence properly admitted? is the most important question raised on this appeal.
Of course it is elementary that an amended pleading entirely supersedes the original, which ceases to be a part of the record. The original has no longer any existence as a pleading; but this is not the question here. Although superseded as a pleading, may it still be introduced in evidence as an admission against the party who interposed it? If it was signed or verified by the party, or if it otherwise affirmatively appears that the facts stated therein were inserted with his knowledge or by his direction, we can see no reason why it is not as competent as any other admission made by him, although it has ceased to be a pleading in the case, -- not, of course, conclusive, but subject to explanation. To introduce such evidence when a party has thus changed front is a common practice, and we have no doubt a correct one. And even when the pleading is signed or verified only by the attorney, if the party stands by it by allowing it to remain the pleading in the case, so that it contains a solemn admission of record, it would perhaps be presumed that its allegations of fact were inserted by his authority, and hence admissible against him in other actions. The weight of authority seems to go that far. Gordon v. Parmelee, 2 Allen 212; Bliss v. Nichols, 12 Allen 443; Brown v. Jewett, 120 Mass. 215; Ayres v. Hartford F. Ins. Co., 17 Iowa 176; Truby v. Seybert, 12 Pa. 101. There is the greater reason for such a rule, under the present system, where technical forms are abolished, and pleadings are required to state the facts. There is no longer any reason for considering the allegations of a pleading as the mere suggestions of counsel. But where the party has substituted an amended pleading, thereby impliedly saying that the original was interposed under a mistake as to the facts, we think it would be going too far to admit in evidence against him the original, when not verified by him, or when it does not otherwise appear that its contents were inserted with his knowledge or sanction.
We are led to this conclusion largely from practical considerations. The tendency of courts now is to limit the admissibility of evidence of admissions of agents against principals, and keep it within the strict limits of the rules as settled by the cases. Ewell's Evans on Agency, 223. It is a well-known fact that attorneys often have to interpose pleadings, in the absence of their clients, with only an imperfect knowledge of the facts. Their information is not always, or necessarily, derived from the parties themselves. A subsequent and fuller investigation shows that errors of fact have been committed which render amendment necessary. If, after a party has indicated...
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