4 Colo. App. 355 | Colo. Ct. App. | 1894
delivered the opinion of the court.
The appellee was plaintiff below. Fie brought this suit against the railroad company upon the demands of four men, employees of the company, for one month’s wages due each; and which, as he claimed, had been sold and assigned to him. The only evidence in the case was that introduced by the plaintiff. The defendant offered none. Plaintiff had judgment and the defendant appealed.
A question is made as to the amount and character of proof required of the plaintiff to establish his claim, and entitle him to judgment. By the terms of the instrument of transfer in each case, the assignor sold, assigned, transferred and set over all his right, title and interest, for work and labor performed for the company during the month specified. It is objected that this does not purport to assign any definite sum, or even the earnings; but that its effect is to transfer only what might be due the assignor at the date of the assignment; and that, therefore, it was incumbent upon the plaintiff to show what the interest of each assignor was at that date ; which would necessitate proof on his part that the claims had not been paid, or that they were not extinguished by some other matters of account between the assignors and the defendant. We cannot assent to this proposition. We think the effect of the assignment was to transfer to the plaintiff the wages of the assignors for the time mentioned. Upon proof of the amount earned by each, the presumption of law is that it remained due and unpaid; and payment, set-off, or anything else which might go in reduction or extinguishment of the claims, was matter of defense.
The amounts earned by Moorehouse, Minckler and Lambert, three of the assignors, is shown by the testimony of
For the purpose of showing the amount earned by Shumacher, another of the assignors, the plaintiff placed upon the stand J. J. Burns, superintendent of the southern division of the railroad, and in charge of the affairs of that division. He produced a book which he called an impression book, and which, against the defendant’s objection, was permitted to be introduced in' evidence. It appears that the time of the class of employees to which Shumacher belonged was kept by the trainmaster in a book which he had in his office for that purpose. It was his duty to make up from that book a time-sheet, and send it to the office of the witness, who then took a letterpress copy of it, which he kept in his office, and forwarded the original to the Denver office, where the pay-roll of the men was made out. The time-sheet showed the number
There is no reason why a party may not repeat an admission made by him against himself. In such case, each separate repetition would be a new admission, provable independently of any former admission; and if the admission was contained in a writing made by him, which he afterwards copied, the copy would answer the same purpose as the original, upon proof that it was his work. He could not repudiate it because it was a copy, and demand the production of the first writing, because the one being a repetition of the other, and each being his own act, the same admission is contained in both. A corporation can act only through its officers and
We find no error in the rulings complained of, and accordingly affirm the judgment.
Affirmed.