Recorder (law)

“ It forbade seizure of records in any manner not definitely authorized by local statute. The sergeant went through it, getting full value from each word.
At last his finger came away from the page.
"Those are private records, you're talking about. On this planet, the law protects corporate records to the fullest extent. We'd have to have positive evidence that an incriminating document was in existence. We'd have to define its location and content within fairly narrow limits. Then we'd have to go before a local determinator and request authority for an examination of that document." ”

“ The docket-entries and files of the court stand in place of the record. When a formal record is not required by law, those entries which are permitted to stand in place of it are admissible in evidence. Several judicial decisions in England have been referred to by the counsel of the plaintiff in error, to the effect, that the finding of an indictment at the sessions cannot be proved by the production of the minute-book of the sessions, from which book the roll, containing the record of such proceedings, is subsequently made up. ”

“ If records merely because required to be kept by law ipso facto become public records, we are indeed living in glass houses. Virtually every major public law enactment-to say nothing of State and local legislation-has record-keeping provisions. In addition to record-keeping requirements, is the network of provisions for filing reports. Exhaustive efforts would be needed to track down all the statutory authority, let alone the administrative regulations, for record-keeping and reporting requirements. Unquestionably they are enormous in volume. ”

“ It was not intended to give to the copy produced under such circumstances greater weight than to the original itself. To avail himself, therefore, of the statute, the party must, in all cases, file as therein prescribed, the original or the copy from the record, and give notice of the filing; and even then the statutory proof will be insufficient, if the affidavit alleging a belief of its forgery be made. Such affidavit being filed, the party relying upon the deed must make proof of its execution, with all its essential formalities, as required by the rule of the common law. ”

“ The unwritten must be by the parol testimony of experts. As to the manner of authenticating the law, there is no general rule, except this: that no proof shall be received, 'which presupposes better testimony behind, and attainable by the party.' They may be verified by an oath, or by an exemplification of a copy, under the great seal of a State, or, by a copy, proved to be a true copy by a witness who has examined and compared it with the original, or by a certificate of an officer, properly authorized, by law, to give the copy; which certificate must be duly proved. ”

“ This act declares further that the said records and judicial proceedings, authenticated as aforesaid, shall have such faith and credit given to them in every other court within the United States as they have by law, or usage, in the courts of the State from whence the said records are or shall be taken. The mode of authentication prescribed by the law requires the attestation of the clerk with his seal attached, and the certificate of the judge that the attestation was in due form. ”

“ Consequently, "An act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned," was approved at the second session of the First Congress, May 31, 1790.^ This law required that the author or proprietor deposit a copy of any book or map published, or deposit a printed copy of the title of such book or map, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court where the author or proprietor shall reside. The Clerk was required to record the entry in a book
to be kept by him for that purpose. ”

“ If they are not authorized or required to be registered, or the registry itself is not in compliance with the law, the act of registration is treated as a mere nullity, and then the subsequent purchaser is affected only by such actual notice as would amount to a fraud.'
It follows that the recording of the instrument under consideration was a mere nullity in a jurisdiction such as the District of Columbia (Rev. St. D. C. § 440) , where particular formalities are required to authorize the recording. ”

“ Justice Hughes to meet this challenge raised by the dissent stand for the proposition that (a) a custodian has no privilege, and (b) public documents and records are non-privileged, but not at all on any notion that private records required to be kept by law are 'public' records. Before analyzing the eleven precedents or illustrations thus employed, it is worthy of note that the illustrations were derived from the Government's brief. ”

“ It reads as follows: 'Persons imprisoned or without the United States,'-having the words 'beyond seas' erased; whereas the printed statutes retain the words 'beyond seas,' and add or interpolate the word 'or.'
It is no doubt true, as a general rule, that the mistake of a transcriber or printer cannot change the law; and that when the statutes published by authority are found to differ from the original on file among the public archives, that the courts will receive the latter as containing the expressed will of the legislature in preference to the former. ”

“ The Court states the correct standard for a "compilation," but then inexplicably fails to apply it to the facts of this case. Ante, at 155, n. 6. A compilation is "something composed of materials collected and assembled from various sources or other documents." Ante, at 153. It is not sufficient that the Government records or information "could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings." 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b) (7) (A) . The Exemption is primarily designed to protect law enforcement agencies from requests for information that they have gathered for law enforcement purposes. ”

“ The deeds in the present case are copies of the originals remaining in the archives, and are certified by Steele, the commissioner, that they agree with the original titles which exist in the archives, from which they are taken for the parties interested, the day of their date, in the form provided by the law. ”

“ When filed with the recorder the instrument became valid as against all persons except those whose rights have attached upon the property before the recording of the instrument. See to the same effect Re Shirley, 50 C. C. A. 252, 112 Fed. ”

“ Taking the copy of the writ found in the record to be a true copy, it may be considered as established, that a writ of error was issued and served, and that a transcript of the record, with a copy of the writ, was returned and filed in this court, before the first day of the next term after it was issued, and that the original writ is destroyed.
We have repeatedly held that the writ of error in cases at law is essential to the exercise of the appellate jurisdiction of this court. ”

“ Where a person has in his possession, custody or control, in the course of trade or business or otherwise than for a private or domestic use, an unauthorised recording of a performance, a person having the performer’s right or recording rights in relation to the performance under this section shall be entitled to an order of the court that the recording be forfeited and delivered up to him. ”

“ It is an early and well-recognized principle that one great object in spreading an instrument of writing on a public record is to give constructive notice of its contents to all mankind.' It is a further inference which we are judicially bound to make, that records so carefully provided by law, and so useful, were in fact the common resort of the community whose dealings in real estate they were meant to register ”

“ By an act, approved July 21, 1837, (Purple, Real Est. St. 496, 497,) it was provided that the recording of any deed, * * * whether executed within or without the state, by the recorder of the county in which the lands intended to be affected are situated, shall be deemed and taken to be notice to subsequent purchasers and creditors from the date of such recording, whether said writing shall have been acknowledged or proven in conformity with the laws of the state or not, and that the provisions of the act shall apply as well to writings heretofore as those hereafter admitted to record. ”

“ It is contended by the defendants, that this prohibition to give a copy of the plot and certificate of survey, excludes the idea of that notoriety which is ascribed to a record. Though inserted for preservation in a book which is denominated a book of record, it does not become, in fact, a record, until it shall partake of that characteristic quality of a record, on which the obligation to notice it is founded, being accessible to all the world. ”

“ No individual may refuse to hand over such records or keep such records as his own.
Records that are prohibited from being filed as archives pursuant to the regulations of the state shall not be filed as archives without due authorization.
Article 15
State organs, groups, enterprises, public institutions, and other organizations shall regularly transfer their archives to the archival repositories in accordance with relevant regulations of the state, and the archival repositories may not refuse to receive. ”

“ What the law requires to be done, and appear of record, can only be done and made to appear by the record itself, or an exemplification of the record. It is perfectly immaterial whether there be an acknowledgment, or privy examination in fact or not, if there be no record made of the privy examination; for, by the express provisions of the law, it is not the fact of privy examination merely, but the recording of the fact, which makes the deed effectual to pass the estate of a feme covert. ”

“ In reference to this conveyance it may be remarked, that by the common law, it was valid without registration; and where register acts require deeds to be recorded, they are valid until the time prescribed by the statute has expired; and if recorded within the time, are as effectual from the date of execution, as if no register act existed. ”

“ The inferior evidence to establish the existence of a judicial record must be something officially connected with it, such as the journals of the court, or some other entry, though short of the judgment or record, which shows that it has been judicially made. The burning of an office and of its records is no proof that a particular record had ever existed. ”

“ For of general acts of Parliament the courts of common law are to take notice without pleading them. And such acts shall never be put to be tried by the record upon an issue of nul tiel record, but it shall be tried by the court, who, if there be any difficulty or uncertainty touching it, or the right of pleading it, are to use for their information ancient copies, transcripts, books, pleadings, and memorials, to inform themselves, but not to admit the same to be put in issue by a plea of nul tiel record. ”

“ This certificate, then, is a confession, in terms, that the entire act of the Governor is not given, but that the document is incomplete.
The rule of evidence is, with regard to copies, that they must be complete, and must be properly authenticated. Records are never allowed to be adduced in evidence, unless they are perfect records. It is never permitted to garble them, nor to read parts of them, or extracts from them, as evidence. ”

“ The acts required to be done by an author, to secure his right, are in the order in which they must naturally transpire. First, the title of the book is to be deposited with the clerk, and the record he makes must be inserted in the first or second page; then the public notice in the newspapers is to be given; and within six months after the publication of the book, a copy must be deposited in the department of state.
A right undoubtedly accrues on the record being made with the clerk, and the printing of it as required; but what is the nature of that right. Is it perfect? ”

“ Such archives and records shall be carefully preserved, and private persons shall, without distinction, have the right to require in accordance with law authenticated copies of the contracts, wills, and other instruments forming part of notarial protocols or files, or which may be contained in the executive or judicial archives, be the latter in Spain or in the islands aforesaid. ”

“ The process of registration at that time was regulated by a late law devised to afford the best security then possible for the genuineness of deeds, as far as attestation went. The signatures, whether in full or by caste mark, or by cross, or, in the case of women mostly, by touching the paper with the tip of the finger wetted with ink from the clerk's pen (see p. 35) , were always made in the presence and under the eye of the Registrar, who, in most cases, had to rely on the sworn evidence of witnesses attesting their personal knowledge of the executant. ”

“ With the lost files in the record, we should see that the court had the right to permit the parties to litigate before it as they did.
There is here no question of a restoration of lost records. This record has never been lost. It was not made until after the fire. The litigation was pending when that calamity occurred. What has been lost is part of the files which, when the time arrived to make up a record, would have been incorporated into it. What we have to consider is whether in the record as made their loss has been supplied. ”

“ The first care, therefore, of the custodian of records should be to preserve this connexion, where it exists. In the majority of countries a previous task awaits him; it has been his duty to collect and arrange his documents. There are few countries in which records have not passed through a period of neglect; each office of state has kept or rather neglected its own papers; each court of justice has been the keeper of its own records; the student has been paralysed by a multitude of repositories among which he vainly sought the documents he required. ”