Toomer v. Gadsden
Toomer v. Gadsden
Opinion of the Court
To make an account book evidence, all that our cases seem to require, are that the book be regularly kept and that it be the book of original entries. The evidence offered must not be loose memoranda, such as the pedlar’s case reported in 2 Hill, 678, nor a book into which the charges have been transferred from some other book or memorandum, but the book in which the entries are made co-temporaneously with the facts which they record. Now it seems to me all these requisites may exist as well when the accounts are kept in what I have heard called a petty ledger, as in this case, as when the entries are first made in the form of a day book and transferred to the journal and ledger. From my own expeiience and that of most of the members of this Court, I am satisfied that this form of keeping accounts is very often used, and to reject it now would deprive a great number of persons, especially professional men, mechanics, and small dealers, of their legal right of proving their accounts by their books. In the case of Hurtz v. Neufville, reported in a note to Harris v. Caldwell, the book of the plain
Motion granted.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.