Crichton v. Smith

Brent, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. As was intimated at the argument, we entertain no doubt, that this appeal is properly before the Court. The case before the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City was solely upon the motion by the defendants, who are the appellants here, for a new trial, which motion that Court alone was authorized to hear under the then provisions of the judiciary system for Baltimore City. The party making the motion had, at any time, the right to withdraw it by leave of the Court, and this having been done, the question was as effectually settled in that Court as if it had been heard and decided.

The original papers, which had been transmitted under the rules, read by agreement upon the motion to dismiss, were then rightfully returned to Baltimore City Court, where the trial had taken place and from the latter Court only could the record come up. We find no irregularity in the entry of the appeal, or in the filing of the bills of exceptions certified to us as a part of the record. If the rules of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City conferred the right to use them upon a motion for a new trial, it cannot be admitted that they could not therefore be used upon an appeal to this Court. The motion to dismiss will be overruled. ⁴⁷ The questions presented upon this appeal are raised by two exceptions, and relate to the admissibility of certain evidence offered at the trial below.

The suit was instituted to recover damages for the alleged breach of a charter-party, which the appellees aver in their declaration, was entered into between the appellants and the master of the Schooner “Union,” a vessel belonging to the appellees and for whom, the master, in the making of said charter-party, acted as agent. The first exception is taken to the ruling of the Court in allowing a paper offered by the appellees, and purporting to be the charter-party, to be read in evidence to the jury, upon proof that the identical paper had been produced and used by the appellants, as the charter-party between the parties to this suit, in a certain other cause depending in the District Court of the United States for the District of Maryland. The paper having been exhibited and used by the appellants, in a former suit, as the true and genuine charter-party between the parties to this suit, was certainly an admission of the strongest character in favor of its authenticity, and we cannot perceive how the Court below could,Lave done otherwise than allow it to be read in evidence. The objection, that it does not appear to have been used in a case between the same parties, is not within the principle upon which it is admissible.

It is immaterial whether the parties were the same or not. The paper, as offered, is not competent evidence from any privity of parties in that cause, but from the admission of the appellants, by its production and use, that it is the agreement which they had entered into with the appellees. The ease of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore R. R. Co. vs. Howard, 13 How., (S. C.,) 332, is a