Clark & Co. v. Spence
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
E.RROR to the district court of Allegheny county. Dr. James Spence against Thomas S. Clark & Co. This was an action cn the case brought to recover the price of a trank and its contents, which came to the, possession of the defendants as ware-housemen in the city of Pittsburg. The plaintiff, after giving evidence of the receipt of the trunk by the defendants, offered to prove the contents by the evidence of the plaintiff himself.
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E.RROR to the district court of Allegheny county. Dr. James Spence against Thomas S. Clark & Co. This was an action cn the case brought to recover the price of a trank and its contents, which came to the, possession of the defendants as ware-housemen in the city of Pittsburg. The plaintiff, after giving evidence of the receipt of the trunk by the defendants, offered to prove the contents by the evidence of the plaintiff himself. The defendants objected to the competency of the witness, but the court overruled the objection and sealed a bill of exceptions. The plaintiff then testified as to…
1Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was'delivered by
Rogers, J.
A party is not competent to testify in his own cause, but, like every other general rule, this has its exceptions. Necessity either physical or moral, dispenses with the ordinary rules of evidence. In 12 Vin. 24, pl. 32, it is laid down, that on a trial at Bodnyr, coram Montagu, B, against a common carrier, a question arose, about the things in a box, and he declared, that this was one of those cases where the party, himself, might be a witness ex necessitate rei. For every one did not show what he put in his box. The same principle is…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Beckman v. ShouseSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1835
3Cited by22 opinions
- Mattox v. United StatesSupreme Court of the United States · 1895
- Fleischman, Morris & Co. v. Southern Ry.Supreme Court of South Carolina · 1907
- Schell v. Miller North Broad Storage Co.Superior Court of Pennsylvania · 1940
- Prettyman v. Hopkins Motor Co.West Virginia Supreme Court · 1954
- Pettigrew v. BarnumCourt of Appeals of Maryland · 1857
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