McClain v. Anderson Free Press

In Coleman & Lipscomb v. Frasier, 4 Rich. 146, 38 S. C. 146, 53 Am. Dec. 727, evidence of Meigs’ declaration was, as Justice Moss points out, admitted on two grounds, to wit: (1) that the declaration was against the penal interest of the declarant, who at the time of the trial was dead; and (2) that it had been made in the defendant’s presence. But, the court having based its decision on both grounds, we cannot evade the consequences of the ruling on the first by saying that the decision might have been rested on the second alone. Where a decision is based on two or more grounds, the ruling…