9 W. Va. 69 | W. Va. | 1876
This was an action of debt,.brought in the county •court of Wood county, against the drawer and .endorser ■oi a promissory note, negotiable and payable at The First National Bank of Parkersburg. The defendant, the •endorser, pleaded nil d.<¡bit, and issue being joined, the parties waived a trial by jury and agreed that the issue ..should be tried by the court. The.plaintiff offered in . evidence, the note and protest thereof, in the usual-form,
By the ’commercial law,'as "recognized in all civilized countries, a protest of a foreign bill of exchange, by a foreign notary, under his hand and official seal, is everywhere received as primary evidence. Upon the general principles of the common law,' the certificate under the official seals of foreign officers; acting as the agents and instruments of private parties, would not be received as primary evidence.- But an exception, for public convenience, has been' always made 'in favor of protests of foreign bills of exchange, by foreign notaries. Nicholls v. Webb, 8 Wheaton 326. It might be doubtful, whether the courts would, upon common law principles, take-judicial notice off who are officers within our State, exercising the general powers which have been conferred on notaries, though the American authorities incline to extend this judicial recognition to inferior officers, to whom it was formerly regarded as doubtful whether this judicial recognition would be extended. But in the same spirit in' which the courts have recognized the official character of fdi’eign notaries, when authenticated by their own seal only, we think the courts should take judicial notice of who are-our own notaries,'and it would thence seem that their certificates,‘in proper cases, should be received as ' primary evidence, though not under seal, as 'such certificates, not under seal, are received from other' officers, in proper cases, where such officers''are judicially "recognized, ag such. It was de
JudgmeNT Affirmed.