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Reports of Cases in the High Court of Chancery of Maryland 1846-1854
Volume 200, Volume 3, Page 430   View pdf image (33K)
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430 HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY.
upon which it was made; and by the judgment and order of
this Court, approved by the Court of Appeals, the com-
plainant has had permission to surcharge and falsify with re-
spect to certain errors specified in his bill, and with respect to
them alone. The complainant, therefore, stands before the
Court precisely in the attitude of an ordinary suitor, and upon
this application to compel the production of books and papers
from the adversary, must show himself entitled upon the gene-
ral practice and law regulating the subject.
In the case of Williams and Bradford vs. Williams, 1 Md.
Oh. .Decisions, 199, it was observed, that the power to compel
parties to produce books and papers, though clearly belonging
to the Court, was a power to be exercised withCaution; and
that the party invoking it " should, with a reasonable degree
of certainty, designate the books and papers required, and the
facts expected to be proved by them." And the cases referred
to in the notes to 1 Bland, 90, and that of Duvall vs. The Far-
mers' Bank, 2 Bland, 686, were referred to, as showing this
to be the rule.
Assuming this to be so, it appears to me, that the petition
in this case is insufficient as the foundation of the order prayed.
It not only does not designate the books called for, nor the
facts expected to be proved by them; but the allegation, gene-
ral as it is, that they contain evidence pertinent to the issue,
is stated hypothetically, the allegation being " that if they have
been kept with any regard to good faith and accuracy, they
must contain evidence pertinent to the issues in the cause."
But, as was said by Chancellor Hanson as far back as 1803,
"in all cases, where books have been ordered to be produced,
the particular books have been specified, and the Court has
been first satisfied of the necessity of producing them." 1
Bland, 90. It appears to me, therefore, that it would be a
most inconvenient and unjustifiable expansion of the rule, to
apply it to a case like the present, and merely upon the sug-
gestion, that possibly they may contain evidence material to
the issue to order the books of a corporation to be brought into
Court.

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Reports of Cases in the High Court of Chancery of Maryland 1846-1854
Volume 200, Volume 3, Page 430   View pdf image (33K)
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