Downer v. Town of Strafford
Supreme Court of Vermont
Case for injury to the wife on a highway. Plea, the general issue, and trial by jury, December term, 1873, Barrett, J., presiding.
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Case for injury to the wife on a highway. Plea, the general issue, and trial by jury, December term, 1873, Barrett, J., presiding. The plaintiffs gave evidence tending to prove, that on the 14th of August, 1870, Mrs. Downer, the wife of the said Sylvester, was, with her son George, passing over a bridge in the defendant town, which the town was bound to keep in repair, and that owing to the want of repair thereof, the horse, which George was driving, stepped through a bole in the bridge, which frightened it, whereupon it sprang forward, when a loose plank hit it, and it became nearly…
1Opinion of the Court
*583The opinion of the court was delivered by
Wheeler, J.
This evidence as to what George said about the cause of the accident, was not a part of any transaction that was at all material to the case. He was holding the horse and talking, but was not talking about what he was then doing. He was talking about what had previously taken place, although but recently. His statement was a narrative of a past transaction, and not a material part of a present one. Such statements are not admissible because they are made about matters so recent that the witness cannot have forgotten, nor have had time to…
2Cases cited3 opinions
- Luby v. . the Hudson River Railroad CompanyNew York Court of Appeals · 1858
- Worden v. PowersSupreme Court of Vermont · 1865
- Eddy v. DavisSupreme Court of Vermont · 1861
3Cited by2 opinions
- Goulette's Administrator v. Grand Trunk Railway Co.Supreme Court of Vermont · 1919
- State v. CarltonSupreme Court of Vermont · 1876