Letters of a shipping agent to his principal are incompetent
evidence, either in themselves or in corroboration of the agent's
testimony, of the quantity of goods shipped against third
persons.
This was an action on a policy of insurance upon a cargo of
sugar shipped at Sagua in Cuba for New York. After verdict and
judgment for the plaintiffs, the defendant sued out this writ of
error.
MR. JUSTICE GRAY delivered the opinion of the Court.
The principal controversy at the trial was whether the cargo
shipped consisted of 531 hogsheads, or of 368 hogsheads only.
Upon this question there was much conflicting evidence, and the
plaintiffs introduced a number of depositions taken under
commission at Sagua, including those of the plaintiffs themselves
as to what took place at their warehouse and those of their
shipping agents as to what took place at the port some twenty miles
below. Annexed to the deposition of one of the plaintiffs were
letters written to them by their shipping agents at the time of the
successive shipments, stating the number of hogsheads shipped. Upon
these letters being offered in evidence by the plaintiffs, the
defendant objected that they were irrelevant and incompetent, and
duly excepted to the ruling of the court admitting them.
It is too clear for discussion that these letters, written
to
Page 129 U. S. 643
the plaintiffs by their own agents, were no part of the
transaction of shipping the sugar, but were mere reports by the
agents to their principals, and were incompetent, either in
themselves, or in corroboration of the testimony of the agents, to
prove the facts recited in the letters against third persons.
Freeborn v.
Smith, 2 Wall. 160,
69 U. S. 176;
Dwyer v.
Dunbar, 5 Wall. 318;
United States v. Corwin,
ante, 129 U. S.
318.
Upon the exceptions to other rulings we give no opinion, because
they may be presented in a different aspect upon another trial. To
avoid misapprehension, it may be added that, according to the rule
heretofore laid down by this Court, objections to copies of
documents or memoranda embodied in or annexed to the depositions
might perhaps more properly have been made by motion to suppress
them before the trial, so as to afford opportunity to produce the
originals, when those would be competent evidence.
York Co.
v. Central Railroad, 3 Wall. 107;
Blackburn
v. Crawfords, 3 Wall. 175,
70 U. S.
191.
But the letters to the plaintiffs from their own agents were
absolutely incompetent, and their admission in evidence clearly
tended to prejudice the defendant with the jury. Upon this
ground,
The judgment of the circuit court must be reversed, and the
case remanded with directions to set aside the verdict and to order
a new trial.