Harriman v. Jones

An attorney may be required to testify who his client was, in a certain suit; and letters written to the attorney are competent evidence against their author to show that he was the client for whom the attorney brought and conducted the suit. In a suit brought by an executor, letters written by the defendant as agent of the testator, and at his request, are competent evidence as admissions made by the testator, although the defendant cannot testify.

Assumpsit, on a note for $250, signed by the defendant, and payable to the plaintiffs’ testator. The defence was want of consideration. The question was, whether the defendant bought of the testator a $250 note against one Hill, and gave the note in suit for the Hill note, or whether he merely assisted the testator in an unsuccessful attempt, made in this defendant’s name, to collect the Hill note. The testator endorsed the Hill note, and a suit, brought upon it in the name of this defendant, against Hill, was defeated by Hill’s bankruptcy. Subject to the plaintiff’s exception, the defendant was allowed to prove, by the testimony of the attorneys who brought and conducted that suit, and by letters written to those attorneys by this defendant in behalf of the testator as his agent and at his request, that the testator was the client of those attorneys in that suit, as a fact tending to show that the testator was the plaintiff in interest in that suit, and that this defendant did not buy the Hill note. Verdict for the defendant.