Schaff v. Holmes
Schaff v. Holmes
Opinion of the Court
Holmes sued in the county
court of Baylor county the Wichita Valley Railway Company, C. E. Schaff, as receiver of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company of Texas, for damages to a shipment of cattle from Bomarton, Baylor county, Tex., to Kansas City, Mo. The negligence charged was a delay of 24 hours over the schedule or usual time for the shipment and the negligent and rough handling of the cars, so that the cattle were damaged and injured. There is no allegation that the appellant refused to unidad, feed, water, and rest the cattle, as required by the statute. Upon the verdict of the jury in answer to special issues the court rendered against Schaff, receiver, $195, and the juiy found nothing against the Wichita Valley Railroad Company, and no judgment was entered against it.
The first assignment will not be considered over appellee’s objection, in that the assignment in the brief is not a copy of the assignment filed in the court below, but a reconstructed assignment. See Schaff v. Fancher et al., No. 1520, 215 S. W. 861, handed down by this court.
“As requested, I am attaching a copy of the account sales (marked Exhibit A, by the notary for .identification), covering this shipment also unloading certificate (marked Exhibit B by the notary for identification), showing the time these cattle were unloaded. The copy of the account sales attached is a true and correct copy, and shows the correct weights of the cattle. The said copy of the account sales attached was taken from the books of the National Live Stock Commission Company, that are kept in the regular course of the business of selling cattle. The entries made on the account sales were made by one of our bookkeepers, and it is our custom to have such entries made directly after, and from the data furnished by the weighmaster. This account sales and the record hereto attached was handled every way in the usual manner of our company.”
This is all the evidence as to the correctness of the account. The account sales, as will be seen from • the evidence above, was inadmissible, and is in that class of eases holding that it is hearsay. Railway Co. v. Startz, 97 Tex. 167, 77 S. W. 1; Railway Co. v. Cauble, 41 Tex. Civ. App. 348, 91 S. W. 244; Railway Co. v. Leggett, 99 S. W. 176; Id., 86 S. W. 1066; Railway Co. v. Curtis, 190 S. W. 837; Texas Glass Co. v. Reese, 187 S. W. 723; Randle v. Barden, 164 S. W. 1063. 1 The evidence introduced does not fall under the shop book rule. But the account sales, in cases of this kind, falls under the exception, admitting entries made by third parties unconnected with the controversy. The rule, or the exception to the hearsay rule, apparently is that entries and declarations of third parties made in books, minutes or memoranda in writing in the usual course of business and in the discharge of professional, offidial, or other duty, and made at or about the time when the fact they record took place, are admissible on proper preliminary proof after the death of the person who made the entry. Elliott on Evidence, vol. 1, §§ 479, 480, et seq.; I-Heidenheimer v. Johnson, 76 Tex. 200, 13 S. W. 46. However* there are jurisdictions which hold that entries are admissible when the entrant is absent from the jurisdiction, but in some jurisdictions — and we believe in this state — when the person making the entry is still living and such entries have all the requisites except the death of the declar-ant, and in addition are authenticated by oath of the declarant, they are held admissible. In such cases the entries should be made by persons having knowledge of the facts, or in those" cases 'where two or more persons have combined in making the entry, one or more reporting the fact and another writing it down, the entrant may testify to its correctness. See Greenleaf on Evidence (16th Ed.) p. 206; Underwood v. Parrott, 2 Tex. 168. And the courts holding books are admissible, even though the entrant is alive, require the living person who made the entry be called, or his deposition taken. Chaffee v. United States Book, 18 Wall. 516, 21 L. Ed. 908. It is sufficient if he then states the entries are correct, and were made in the regular course of business and on the discharge of his duty, and entered at the time they purport to have been made. Shove v. Wiley, 18 Pick. (Mass.) 558; Moots v. State, *866 21 Ohio St. 653. The most satisfactory discussion of this class of evidence that we have been able to find is by Judge Fisher in Railway Co. v. Startz, 94 S. W. 207, where the authorities are collected and reviewed. If the witness Le -Bow had used the account sales to refresh his memory and testified to their correctness, we doubt not but the account sales would have been admissible. If the bookkeeper making the entry had testified to the correctness of the items and their entry in the course of his' duty at the time the facts occurred, and in the regular course of business, the entries thepselves, would be admissible, and especially would this be true if the salesman and bookkeeper used, the account sales to refresh their memory, and testified to its correctness. Startz Case, supra. In this case the salesman Testified as to the correctness of the weights. If he had testified, as did the witness Overstreet in the Startz Case, there would have been no error in admitting the account sales, perhaps. But in this case the witness discloses he did -not make the entries, but they were made by another. Just how and when they were made is not shown — whether from the personal knowledge of the entrant, or from reports to him by the salesman or weigher; whether from oral statements, or from tickets furnished. And there is no testimony as to the correctness of the account sales or unloading certificate, only that it is a correct copy, presumably of the original entries. We believe the court was in error in admitting in evidence the account sales and the unloading certificate.
Assignments 5 and 6 present no reversible error, and will be overruled.
The judgment as to the receiver, Schaff, will be reversed and remanded, but affirmed as to the Wichita Valley Railway Company, not appealing, and there are no cross-assignments as to the judgment in its favor.
other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Schaff v. Holmes.
- Cited By
- 4 cases
- Status
- Published