Rea v. Missouri , 21 L. Ed. 707 ( 1873 )

84 U.S. 532 (1873) 17 Wall. 532

REA
v.
MISSOURI.

Supreme Court of United States.

Messrs. J.B. Henderson and A.F. Smith, for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. J.O. Broadhead, contra.

Mr. Justice BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the court.

1. As to the exception to the ruling of the court on the admission of evidence in the case. The cross-examination of Hayes was very long, and took a wide range: much wider than is allowed in United States courts in the case of an ordinary witness, where the cross-examination is usually confined within the scope of the direct examination.^[*] But a greater latitude is undoubtedly allowable in the cross-examination of a party who places himself on the stand than in that of other witnesses. Still, where the cross-examination is directed to matters not inquired about in the principal examination, its course and extent is very largely subject to the control of the court in the exercise of a sound discretion; and the exercise of that discretion is not reviewable on a writ of error. That was precisely the case here. The witness, on his cross-examination, having stated that he was worth $45,000 at a period some four years prior to the purchase of the goods, was asked how he had acquired that sum. As to a portion of it he stated that he had advanced money to a friend to buy up government vouchers on speculation upon shares. Being asked to name this friend, he declined; and the court refused to compel him to disclose it. This refusal was excepted to. We think it was entirely in the discretion of the court to compel an answer or not. It was on a new matter first introduced on the cross-examination, and was in fact a cross-examination upon a cross-examination. If a court did not possess discretionary power to control such a course of examination, trials might be rendered interminable.

2. As to the exception to the additional instructions of the court. This presents a more serious question; and an examination of them leads us to the conviction that, taken as a whole, they were calculated to mislead the jury as to the character of the evidence necessary to make out the charge of fraud and to prove the issue on the part of the defendants.

To establish fraud, it is not necessary to prove it by direct and positive evidence. Circumstantial evidence is not only sufficient, but in most cases it is the only proof that can be adduced. It was not necessary in this case, for the defendants, in order to maintain the issue on their part, to prove by direct and positive evidence, that Fuller had a secret trust or property in the goods. It was sufficient if they proved such facts and circumstances tending to that conclusion as might reasonably induce the jury to believe that he had such trust or property. The sufficiency of such circumstantial evidence was not, in our judgment, properly presented to the jury; but, on the contrary, the manifest tendency of the charge was to give them the impression that evidence of a more positive and direct character was required. The court said: "The possession of the goods by Hayes, the same having been bought and shipped solely in his name, throws upon the defendant the burden of proving that Fuller had a property interest therein, or was part owner thereof." Whilst this may have been strictly true in a sense in which it might be understood by an educated lawyer, it did not express the whole truth in a form likely to be understood by the jury in such a complicated case as the one before them. "Property interest" and "ownership" are words of precise legal signification, and the jury might readily conclude that an interest or trust in the goods, by which Fuller was to receive or to participate in the profits, was not such property or ownership. And yet such an interest or trust would have been sufficient to sustain the charge made by the defendants, and to entitle them to a verdict.

The passage quoted is but one of several expressions contained in the charge, all tending to give the impression that a technical ownership or property in Fuller was necessary to be proved, in order to sustain the validity of the seizure of the goods under the attachment. A further specification is unnecessary.

It may be urged that the qualifications made in the original charge given to the jury before they were sent out, rendered further qualification unnecessary in the final charge now under consideration. On the contrary, it is a more just inference to suppose that the final charge was regarded by the jury as explanatory and corrective of the first. And as the point on which they were likely to have had difficulty and difference of opinion, would be the sufficiency of the circumstances proved, to make out the case of the defendants, a charge like that which was finally given, coming after their fruitless discussion, ignoring altogether the force of circumstantial evidence, and reiterating that the only issue was property or no property in Fuller, must have had a strong tendency to lead them to an entire disregard of such evidence.

We also think the judge erred in laying it down so absolutely as he did, that the defendants in proving a secret or other agreement or understanding between Hayes and Fuller as to the ownership of the goods, must first establish that fact independent of any declarations or statements by Fuller in the absence of Hayes. Any statements made by Fuller in the absence of Hayes, which were afterwards assented to by the latter, or which were a part of the res gestœ of the purchase of the goods, were competent evidence. For example, the statement of Fuller when commending Hayes to the vendors of the goods, that he was worth forty or fifty thousand dollars, if shown to be untrue, was very material evidence.

We also think the judge erred in instructing the jury that it was immaterial as to the ownership of the goods, how Hayes acquired his means, or whether his exhibit of his means was correct or not. Considering the connection between Hayes and Fuller, the fact that Fuller recommended Hayes as a purchaser of the goods, certified to his responsibility, indorsed his notes for a part of the purchase-money, and pledged his wife's securities as collateral to a portion thereof, an inquiry into Hayes's means at the time of the purchase, and the correctness of his exhibit, was competent and proper. The opposite idea proceeded from the view of the case before noticed, to wit, that the only legitimate inquiry was, as to the naked property of the goods. Whereas, the case really turned upon the ancillary question, whether Hayes and Fuller were engaged in a fraudulent scheme to procure goods in the name of Hayes, but for the secret benefit of Fuller.

JUDGMENT REVERSED, and a

VENIRE DE NOVO ORDERED.

Mr. Justice CLIFFORD dissented, on the first point, the exception to the ruling of the court on the admission of evidence.

NOTES

[*] Johnston v. Jones et al., 1 Black, 216; Teese et al. v. Huntingdon et al., 23 Howard, 2.