20 Or. 209 | Or. | 1890
— The principal exceptions relied upon were taken during the progress of the trial. The record recites that the plaintiff gave evidence tending to support his cause of action and then rested
The defendant then introduced testimony tending to prove that one Murray was its general manager and engaged in hiring men to enter its service and go to Alaska and there engage in the business of canning salmon; that at the time said contract of hiring was closed, plaintiff and about twenty-five other persons wishing to enter the defendant’s service were present; that at said time the contract containing the terms upon which the men were being employed by the defendant was read over in the plaintiff’s presence and hearing, and that he then and there assented to all of its terms except that he would not be bound for any definite time, and his wages were to be $100 a month.
For the purpose of placing before the jury all of the terms and conditions of the contract which the defendant claimed the plaintiff entered into with it, the defendant’s counsel then offered to read to the jury the said writing and to show that plaintiff assented to all of its terms except as above, but
“ Chilcat Canning Company,
“D. Morgan, President,
“By W. A. Sherman, Secretary.”
[Signatures of employes.]
The defendant’s contention on this appeal is that this writing was reaci. over to the plaintiff and in his presence and hearing at the time he was employed, and that he
What is res gestx and what not, are sometimes difficult to distinguish, but the difficulty in making the application does not in any manner impair the rule. Wharton’s Ev. § 1102, says: “It may, however, happen that statements of a party are so interwoven with a contract as to form a part of it, or are so wrought up in a transaction that they form a necessary incident of any narrative of such transaction. In such case the party’s declarations are admissible, as we have already seen, as a part of the res gestx.” So it is said in Wood’s Practice Evidence, § 150, that “whenever the acts or declarations of a party, made at the time of a transaction and so intimately connected therewith as to form a part of it which tend to explain the transaction or to aid in arriving at the real nature, character and purpose of the transaction, are admissible in evidence as well for as against the party making them.” * * * So in Bank v. Kennedy, 17 Wall. 19, it was held that conversations occurring during the negotiation of a loan or other