116 Ala. 142 | Ala. | 1896
The issue below was whether the paper confessedly issued by the Gate City National Bank was altered as to amount and payee before it was presented to and cashed by the Birmingham National Bank. Leaving out of view for the moment the fact that the paper itself bears no evidence of alteration, it is shown about as -clearly and conclusively as the nature of the case admitted of and as oral testimony and attendant circumstances could show, that the check as issued was for the sum of two dollars, payable to James Fix, and that its amount was not indicated by figures cut through the paper, and that when presented to the Birmingham National Bank, it was for four thousand dollars, payable to
The question on the trial was not whether the check appeared on its face to have been altered. To the contrary, it was conceded that it did not so appear. But the real, and, indeed, the only inquiry was, whether a check could be altered in the way it was claimed this one had been by the use of gas, or acids, or other chemicals without afterwards bearing any evidence of alteration. This was a question for solution by expert evidence from the mouths of witnesses who knew something about the effect of chemicals, in the connection under inquiry. A man without knowledge on this subject is not a competent witness upon it, however much experience he may have had in the examination of checks and other papers with a view to determining whether they in fact gave any indication, in and of themselves, upon their faces of having been tampered with. However expert such persons may become in the interpretation of a paper by everything that appears on its face, they yet may be as entirely ignorant of the means and processes by which writing is taken out of paper, and as to whether it can be taken out so as to leave no sign or token that any writing other than that presently appearing on the paper had ever been there, as a person having no experience or special information in either respect. Hence, we think the court erred in Allowing certain of defend-' ant’s witnesses, bank tellers and the like, who had no expert knowledge on the subject, to be asked their opinion as to whether such an alteration could be made. Their answers, however, do not appear to have been of a character to prejudice the plaintiff.
The court was similarly in error in forcing plaintiff’s counsel to object to the reading of the interrogatories which had been propounded to Redwine. The counsel who aéked the court’s permission to read these interrogatories to the jury should have been told by the court of its own motion that he could neither read them to nor refer to them in the presence of the jury. Through the-course- adopted by the court counsel for defendant secured all the advantage that could have enured to his client from the reading of this wholly extraneous matter to the jury, if not more indeed.
There was no error in allowing counsel to'refer to the possibility of ultimate liability on the part of the Gate City Bank to the Birmingham National Bank. If the check was -not raised, the former bank would have to pay it, and this legal conclusion was proper to be brought forward in argument as bearing upon the credibility of the officials of that bank as witnesses in this case.
Reversed and remanded.