113 Mass. 274 | Mass. | 1873
The proposition, which the defendant undertook to maintain, was that he had been authorized by Manuel Nunes to appropriate as he did the money for which the draft had been sent to his care for the plaintiff. To do this required proof of the genuineness of the signature of Manuel’s name to two letters, said to have been received from him by a sister of Manuel and the plaintiff, subsequently to that inclosing the draft. Apparently the only proof offered was the testimony of the defendant himself.
The defendant indeed relies upon the internal evidence furnished by the contents of the letters themselves, tending to show
In the first place the defendant’s testimony that “ he thought they were his handwriting ” was held not to be sufficient. He then offered to show “ that the three letters seen by him were in the same handwriting, as evidence of their authenticity and of their having been written by said Manuel.” This also was ruled to be insufficient.
The qualifications of a witness to testify as to handwriting, and the sufficiency of the proof of writings to be admitted as standards of comparison, are questions which are to be passed upon, in the first instance, by the court, before submitting the evidence to the jury. They involve so much of the element of fact that great consideration must necessarily be given to the decision of the judge at the trial. In all questions of this nature the ruling at the trial will be sustained, unless it is made clearly to appear that it was based upon some erroneous view of legal principles, or that the ruling was not justified by the state of the evidence as presented to the judge at the time. Foster v. Mackay, 7 Met. 531. Rich v. Jones, 9 Cush. 329. Gorton v. Hadsell, 9 Cush. 508. Quinsigamond Bank v. Hobbs, 11 Gray, 250. Commonwealth v. Mullins, 2 Allen, 295. Commonwealth v. Morrell, 99 Mass. 542. Commonwealth v. Williams, 105 Mass. 62. Doud v. Hall, 8 Allen. 410. Lake v. Clark, 97 Mass. 346. Presbrey v. Old Colony & Newport Railroad, 103 Mass. 1. O'Connor v. Hallinan, Ib. 547. Gossler v. Eagle Sugar Refinery, Ib. 331. Lawton v. Chase, 108 Mass. 238.
Neither of the three letters was produced at the trial; their non-production being, in the opinion of the presiding judge, sufficiently accounted for. It was a question, therefore, of the qualification of the witness to testify from such means of knowledge as he had.
Exceptions overruled.