Walker v. Sanborn
Supreme Judicial Court of Maine
On Exceptions, from the ruling of May, J. This was an action upon a note given by defendant to said George W. in his lifetime. The plaintiff read the note in evidence. The defendant proved that he, in the fall of 1855, sent to the said George W., two checks from Calais Bank on Globe Bank, Boston, one for two hundred dollars, and the other for one hundred dollars, and that the same were received by said George W. at Monroe.
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On Exceptions, from the ruling of May, J. This was an action upon a note given by defendant to said George W. in his lifetime. The plaintiff read the note in evidence. The defendant proved that he, in the fall of 1855, sent to the said George W., two checks from Calais Bank on Globe Bank, Boston, one for two hundred dollars, and the other for one hundred dollars, and that the same were received by said George W. at Monroe. The plaintiff offered Elizabeth E. Sanborn, the widow of the said George W., to prove that her husband and said defendant, in August, 1855, were together in her presence,…
1Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was drawn up by
Kent, J.
The rule of the common law, by which a husband and wife were excluded from being witnesses for or against each other, was founded on" two distinct grounds. The first ground was that they were one in the eye of the law, and in their legal rights and interests, and, therefore, they were both parties in fact, where only one was named in the record. The established rule, that a party to the record must be excluded as a witness, whether nominal or actually interested, would thus exclude a wife, where the husband was a party.
This ground of objection…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Williams v. BaldwinSupreme Court of Vermont · 1835
3Cited by4 opinions
- State v. BennerSupreme Judicial Court of Maine · 1971
- State v. SmithSupreme Judicial Court of Maine · 1978
- Wilkes' Administrator v. WilkesSupreme Court of Virginia · 1914
- Wilson v. WilsonSupreme Judicial Court of Maine · 1961