Bradish v. Bliss
Supreme Court of Vermont
Trespass on toe freehold for burning the plaintiff’s barn. Plea, the general issue, and trial by jury, at the September Term, 1861, Peck, J., presiding. The plaintiff introduced evidence, which was all of a circumstantial character, tending to prove the issue on his part, and the defendant introduced evidence tending to prove the contrary.
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Trespass on toe freehold for burning the plaintiff’s barn. Plea, the general issue, and trial by jury, at the September Term, 1861, Peck, J., presiding. The plaintiff introduced evidence, which was all of a circumstantial character, tending to prove the issue on his part, and the defendant introduced evidence tending to prove the contrary. The whole evidence in the case tended to prove that if the defendant was guilty of the alleged trespass, he must have set fire to and burned the barn intentionally and designedly, and thereby committed the crime of arson; and it was so treated and claimed…
1Opinion of the Court
Poland, Ch. J.
The plaintiff claims that the court below instructed the jury substantially, that he was not entitled to recover, even if he satisfied the jury by a fair balance or preponderance of the testimony that the defendant burned his barn ; that the court undertook to lay down a middle rule between that of criminal cases, where the evidence must exclude all reasonable doubt, and of ordinary civil cases, where a fair balance suffices. If this be the fair construction of what the judgo told the jury, we think it was error, for the Jaw does not recognize such intermediate rule of evidence.
*328B…
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- Welch v. JugenheimerSupreme Court of Iowa · 1881
- McKinstry v. CollinsSupreme Court of Vermont · 1904
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