White Sewing Machine Company v. Gordon
| Decision Date | 26 June 1890 |
| Docket Number | 14,364 |
| Citation | 24 N.E. 1053,124 Ind. 495 |
| Parties | The White Sewing Machine Company v. Gordon |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Steuben Circuit Court.
Judgment affirmed.
M. B Johnson, W. G. Cruxton and F. M. Powers, for appellant.
D. R Best and E. A. Bratton, for appellee.
This was a suit by the appellant against the appellee upon a bond which the complaint alleges was executed to the appellant, by the appellee, as surety of one Bush Gordon.
The appellee pleaded non est factum. The cause was tried by a jury, resulting in a verdict for the appellee, upon which the court rendered judgment.
The error assigned is, that the court erred in overruling the motion for a new trial.
It is claimed by the appellant that the court erred in refusing to permit it to prove by Asa T. Beebe, and others, witnesses called by the appellee, on cross-examination, that in their opinion the signatures to two letters, four promissory notes, and a certain claim-file, were the genuine signatures of the appellee. The two letters, a witness called by the appellant testified he had received from the appellee, and that they, among other things, had given him his acquaintance with the appellee's handwriting, and that from his acquaintance with the appellee's handwriting he believed the signature to the bond in suit was genuine.
The four promissory notes were produced by a witness on behalf of the appellant, who testified that he was acquainted with the appellee's signature; that one of the means by which he became acquainted with it was by seeing it to said notes, and that in his opinion the signature to the bond in suit was the appellee's genuine signature.
The claim-file was identified by a witness for the appellant, who testified that the same was acknowledged before him, and that he was acquainted with the handwriting of the appellee, and that, in his opinion, the signature to the bond in suit was his genuine signature.
The letters, promissory notes and claim-file were not papers in this cause, nor were the signatures thereto admitted to be the genuine signatures of the appellee, nor were they read in evidence. They could not under these circumstances be used for making comparison between the signatures thereto attached and the signatures to the bond in suit. Burdick v. Hunt, 43 Ind. 381; Huston v. Schindler, 46 Ind. 38; Jones v. State, 60 Ind. 241. Furthermore, these papers had not been referred to by the witnesses sought to be cross-examined, and were not in any way connected with their testimony, they were not expert witnesses. For these reasons the testimony sought to be elicited was not cross-examination. The court did not, under the circumstances, err in sustaining an objection thereto.
The extent to which a cross-examination shall be conducted is largely in the discretion of the trial court, and such discretion will not be interfered with unless it clearly appears that such discretion has been abused to the injury of the party complaining. For this reason we can not say that the court erred in refusing to allow the appellant to prove by the appellee on cross-examination that the signatures to the notes and letters above referred to were genuine.
On the trial of the cause the appellant offered, for the inspection of the jury, what purported to be a microscopic enlargement of the signature of the appellee to the bond in suit, and proved by a competent witness that he made it by hand from an image in the camera-lucida. Upon objection made by the appellee, the appellant, by his counsel, stated to the court that he expected to prove by said witness that it was a microscopic enlargement, and a correct enlargement of the signature upon the bond, and that said enlargement showed that after the letter "o" in the word "Gordon" had been made, the pen was put aside to retouch it; but the court sustained the objection and excluded the enlarged microscopic signature. The witness, however, was permitted to testify fully in relation to said signature, and to its appearance in its enlarged condition.
It is claimed by the appellant that the...
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