Joseph Story

“ Every authority given to an agent or attorney, to transact business for his principal, must, in the absence of any counter proofs, be construed to be, to transact it according to the laws of the place where it is to be done. A sale of slaves, authorised by an executrix, to be made in Louisiana, must be presumed to be intended to be made in the manner required by the laws of that state to give it validity. ”

“ If they knew of the suit, it was not by such a knowledge of it that they became parties to it, or could be bound by it. Nor does it appear that a notice of the suit, and of claims upon the attorney of the defendant in the suit by Mr Hull, was given to him, with a view to the ultimate responsibility of his constituents. Although such a notice would not have had any legal effect; yet its absence makes the claim to introduce the record in the circuit court, still less entitled to consideration, and entirely denuded. ”

“ As a judgment of the parish court, and of the supreme court, by which Mr Hull was deprived of the slaves he obtained from West, the record might have been admitted in evidence, but nothing more. Not a portion of the other parts of it were legally in the case. The testimony taken in one trial between parties, is not evidence in a succeeding trial between the same parties, much less is it evidence between other parties. It is res inter alios acta.
The authentication of the act of sale, accompanied with the testimony of the clerk of the court of probates, was not sufficient. ”

“ N. P. C. 112, and authorities; 4 Esp. N. P. C. 114; 1 Saund. P. and E. 53 (Admissions) ; 2 Saund. P. and E. 734, 736, and authorities; Paley's Agency 143, 249, 162, 163; Long on Sales 224; 2 D. and E. 189, n.; 4 Bing. 722; 2 H. Bl. 618; Caines v. Bleecher, 12 J. R. 300 ”