65 So. 298 | Ala. Ct. App. | 1914
The suit was on account and account stated, brought by the appellee against the appellant to recover a balance of about $500, alleged to be due on a running account between the parties, aggregating in the course of their dealings something over $3,500. A judgment based on the finding of a jury, was recovered for the amount sued for.
The appellee, being a nonresident corporation, made proof of the account by. the testimony of nonresident witnesses in the employ of the appellee by talcing their depositions. These depositions were duly and regularly taken and returned into court without objections to the direct interrogatories, or cross-interrogatories having been filed by the appellant. There was no regular motion made to suppress the depositions before entering upon the trial, but the bill of exceptions recites that “before entering into the trial the defendant objects to the deposition” upon the ground that the exhibits attached to the depositions were not properly identified. The bill of exceptions also shows that the court examined the depositions and exhibits, and thereupon overruled the appellant’s objections. It could hardly be said to be a valid ground for objection to the entire deposition, or for a motion to suppress or exclude it in its entirety, because some exhibit, or exhibits, attached to it were not properly identified. The proper practice would be to move to exclude or suppress the papers which were undertaken to be made exhibits to the depositions. Further along, however, the bill of exceptions shows that when the appellee offered to read these exhibits to the jury, the appellant separately objected to each on the same grounds, and reserved a separate ex
The .contention of appellant’s counsel that as some of the exhibits were copies of original papers they should not have been admitted without laying a proper predicate is not well founded. No objections were filed to the questions, and the answer and documents produced were directly responsive to the interrogatories. Objections of this nature come too late when made for the-first time on the trial. — Miss. Lumber Co. v. Smith & Co., 152 Ala. 537, 44 South. 475; Creel v. Keith, 148 Ala. 233, 41 South. 780; Standard Talking Mach. Co., v. Matthews, 6 Ala. App. 188, 60 South. 481, and authorities there cited.
The court was not in error in sustaining the appellee’s objection to the question asked the appellant on redirect examination when being examined as a witness, in his own behalf relative to a conversation over the telephone he had had with “the plaintiff” (appellee) in a distant city as to a request made of him to pay a balance due, claimed at that time by “plaintiff” to be-
Sufficient predicate was not laid authorizing proof of the contents of'the draft that the appellant was asked to testify about when being examined as a witness in his own behalf, and the court properly sustained the objection to the question seeking to elicit that testimony. —Potts v. Coleman, 86 Ala. 94, 5 South. 780; Foster v. State, 88 Ala. 187, 7 South. 185.
We find nothing in the record pointed out by appellant in assignments of error justifying a reversal, and the judgment of the lower court will be affirmed.
Affirmed.