Stanton v. Ryan
| Citation | 41 Mo. 510 |
| Parties | JOHN A. STANTON AND THOMAS W. STANTON, Respondents, v. THOMAS RYAN, Appellant. |
| Decision Date | 31 October 1867 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Missouri |
Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court.
Sharp & Broadhead and Blackwell & Farish, for appellant.
I. William Stanton being dead, the plaintiffs (his survivors) were not competent witnesses in their own behalf, and especially to testify on this point as to whether there was or was not a contract.
II. If they were competent for such purposes, then the defendant was alike competent on the same principle for the same purposes.
III. It was error to refuse permission to defendant to testify as to the agency of his wife in the transaction.
IV. The wife was permitted to testify to the agency and some acts done under the agency; and it was fatal error to refuse her testimony as to the plaintiff's bid for the work and contract made by her as agent with them, and the facts and transactions thereunder.
The first and second propositions considered together involve the proper construction of the first proviso of § 1, ch 144, p. 586, Gen. Stat. Where one of the original parties to the contract or cause of action is dead, the other party shall not be admitted to testify in his own favor. This is a very loose, vague and uncertain provision. What is meant by “one of the original parties to the contract or cause of action?” If there are but two contracting persons--one party of one part, the other party of the other part--then it is plain and intelligible; but if three persons jointly as partners are parties of one part to a contract or cause of action, all equally active, present and participating, and one of them dies, has one of the original parties to the contract or cause of action died? Or has only one person of those who were “one of the original parties to the contract” died? Two or twenty persons of the party of one part to a contract may still live and prosecute their suit against one person (the party of the other part); and because one of the plaintiff's co-contractors has died, can it be that the Legislature intended that this party of the other part (defendant) is thereby rendered incompetent? It would be unreasonable, and the statute does not so declare.
But if this construction is contended for, then we say, in carrying out that construction, if the death of one of several co-contractors excludes the other party, surely it excludes the survivors also; for, clearly, the object of the proviso was only to exclude the evidence of one party to the transaction, unless that of the other or adverse party to the transaction could be heard; and if one will not be heard, the other will not.
The court below, it will be seen, permitted two of the three co-contractors of one part to testify on all matters, and then refused the other party the right to do the same; and, more strange, the court seems to have compromised the question by permitting defendant to testify in his own favor as to many facts and matters and some branches of the defence, and refusing it on others, when the language of the statute is express, that if the state of facts exists contemplated by the proviso, then he is not admitted to testify in his own favor. If, then, he was competent in his own favor, he was to all points and for all purposes a witness; he was either competent or incompetent to be a witness, to give all or no evidence relevant. If, then, the plaintiffs were not competent to testify for themselves, both they and defendant should have been excluded. And, clearly, if they were competent, the other party was alike competent. In either construction, the court misapprehended the statute. But in any view or construction, there is no authority for the ruling of the court, that the plaintiffs were competent for all purposes; and defendant was competent as to some points of defence, but not as to others; for he was either competent or incompetent generally, as a witness in the cause, as to any and all legitimate matters of defence.
As to the refusal of the court to permit Mrs. Ryan to testify to the transactions which were had and conducted by her as the agent of her husband, we have never been able to learn upon what ground it was based. The agency, and the fact that the transaction was had and conducted by her, were fully shown and not disputed--G. S. 1865, p. 587, § 5.
It cannot be claimed that the death of one of the plaintiffs, or even of all the plaintiffs, can affect her competency in such case, for there is no proviso, condition or qualification of the kind as to her.
A married woman has not been disqualified on the ground of interest, but on account of her legal and social relation to her husband. It was against the policy of the law that this social relation should be disturbed or endangered by permitting or compelling the wife to testify for or against her husband, generally; the well-being of society and of the commonwealth forbade it. The 5th section is designed to modify and change this in the cases specified in that section, and has no relation to any other section of the act. It plainly removes this disqualification in precisely the case before us by the third clause of the section. And the only proviso to this 5th section is, that the married woman shall not testify as to admissions or conversations of her husband.
Cline, Jamieson & Day, fo...
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Lieber v. Lieber
...the other is not entitled to the undue advantage of being a witness in his own case.' Looker v. Davis, 47 Mo. 140. And in Stanton v. Ryan, 41 Mo. 510, where surviving partners brought an action upon a quantum meruit, and the defendant set up as a defense a special contract with the deceased......
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Carroll v. United Rys. Co. of St. Louis
...has nothing to do with the question of competency under this proviso. It is true that Judge Fox, who wrote the opinion, cites Stanton v. Ryan, 41 Mo. 510; Leahy v. Simpson's Adm'r, supra, and Baer v. Pfaff, supra, quoting from this latter at length, but he distinctly says that these cases a......
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Wagner v. Binder
...Larkin. It will be observed that witness Martin had no interest in the note, nor has he any interest in this suit. In the case of Stanton v. Ryan, 41 Mo. 510, this court clearly announced the rule that an agent in making a contract is a competent witness, notwithstanding the party with whom......
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Freeman v. Berberich
...diversity of opinion seems to have arisen in cases involving the competency of agents who have dealt with a deceased person. In Stanton v. Ryan, 41 Mo. 510, it was held that the defendant's wife, who made a contract as his agent, was competent, although the other party to the contract was d......