Packard v. Hill

Headnote

The written of foreign states must be proved by an and cannot b’e statute books of such slates'

This was an action of assumpsit to recover monies paid, &c. for the defendants. The declaration contained four counts : the three first counts were special, to which the defendant demurred; the fourth was the common count for money paid, laid out and expended, to which the defendant pleaded the general issue. The plaintiffs, before disposing of the issues of law, proceeded to trial on a venire tarn quam, at the New-York circuit, in April, 1825, when the plaintiff was nonsuited on the fourth count. Contingent damages, however, were assessed on the three first counts. Several exceptions were taken on the trial to the decisions of the judge, and the cause was subsequently brought to argument upon the demurrer and bill of exceptions. (See report of case

in 7 Cowen, 434 to 445.) The court gave judgment for the plaintiffs on the demurrer, and that the assessment of damages was justified by the evidence in the case, but set the same aside as irregular, the plaintiff having been nonsuited on the issue of fact. The cause was again tried; the same evidence, in substance, was given as before, and a verdict found for the plaintiffs. Exceptions were again taken, and the same points were raised as on the former argument, with an additional point, which is the only one here intended to be noticed, growing out of an offer of testimony on the trial, which was made for the purpose of invalidating the evidence of a judgment rendered by a court in the island of Havana, called the court of consulado, on which the plaintiffs relied for their recovery. The defendant offered to prove by a witness, that he had practised in the court of consulado of Havana, and was acquainted with the laws by which that court is governed; that they are contained in a printed book, which was produced, and which he had purchased at a bookstore in Havana, and that the practice and proceedings of that court are, in fact, governed by those laws; that they pui’port to be the commercial code of Havana, being the royal charter establishing the consulado of Havana; and that a manuscript, which was also produced, was a translation of such parts of the laws as were deemed material to the question before the court: which evidence was objected to by the plaintiffs, and rejected by the presiding judge.