Corbley v. Wilson

• Decision Date: 31 January 1874
• Citation: 71 Ill. 209,1874 WL 8643,22 Am.Rep. 98
• Parties: EDWARD CORBLEYv.BENJAMIN WILSON.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

71 Ill. 209

1874 WL 8643 (Ill.)

22 Am.Rep. 98

EDWARD CORBLEY

v.BENJAMIN WILSON.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

January Term, 1874.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Vermilion county; the Hon. JAMES STEELE, Judge, presiding.

Mr. J. B. MANN, Mr. J. HARPER, Mr. R. W. HANFORD, and Messrs. JOHN M. & JOHN MAYO PALMER, for the appellant.

Mr. E. S. TERRY, and Messrs. TOWNSEND & YOUNG, for the appellee.

Mr. CHIEF JUSTICE BREESE delivered the opinion of the Court:

This was an action on the case, for slander, brought to the circuit court of Vermilion county, by Benjamin Wilson, against Edward Corbley, to which the defendant pleaded the general issue, and a special plea of justification, that the words spoken were true.

The jury found the defendant guilty, and assessed the damages at six thousand seven hundred dollars, on which the court rendered judgment, having overruled defendant's motion for a new trial. To reverse this judgment is the purpose of this appeal.

The charge made by the defendant against the plaintiff was, the commission of a crime the most abhorrent to nature, which, if established, would ostracize the plaintiff from decent society. We shall express no opinion on one of the points made--that is, the amount of the damages--but have directed our attention to two objections which we deem well taken, and which must reverse the judgment. One objection is, that the court permitted the record of the criminal cause, The People v. Wilson, to be given in evidence to the jury against the objection of the defendant. This was clearly error. It is an axiom of the law, that no man should be affected by proceedings to which he was a stranger--to which, if he is a party, he must be bound. He must have been directly interested in the subject matter of the proceedings--with the right to make defense, to adduce testimony, to cross-examine the witnesses on the opposite side, to control, in some degree, the proceedings, and to appeal from the judgment. Persons not having these rights are regarded as strangers to the cause. Privies are, of course, bound, as they are the representatives of the real parties.

An exception to this rule is allowed in the case of verdicts and judgments upon subjects of a public nature, such as customs and the like; in most, or all, of which cases, evidence of reputation is admissible, and also in cases of judgments in rem; and it is said a judgment, when used by way of inducement, or to establish a collateral fact, may be admitted, though the parties are not the same, as, producing the record of conviction in order to prove the legal infamy of a witness, or to prove what was known at a trial, and cases of this nature. 1 Greenlf. on Ev. sec. 522, et seq.

The record in this case was of a character entirely different. It was a public prosecution, in conducting which defendant had no agency or power, or rights, or interests at stake. It would be subversive of all justice to allow such testimony. What could be more efficacious toward a recovery by plaintiff than to show he had been indicted and tried for the crime, and acquitted? Does this bind the defendant and defeat his plea that the charge was true? So far as the defendant in the indictment and the people are concerned, that record can speak anywhere and everywhere, and its tones must be heeded. But, on what principle is it that defendant should not be permitted to prove the charge, notwithstanding the verdict in the criminal trial? Though that is conclusive between the parties, it is not true as against the defendant. Verdicts of juries in criminal cases are not always responsive to the facts, though public policy demands they should be held, when followed by a judgment, as truth itself, but this only as to parties and privies, or in regard to some public matter, of which we have spoken.

But appellee insists its introduction was proper, to establish the quo animo the words were spoken. There is a dictum of Justice BLACKFORD, in Abrams v. Smith, 8 Blackf. 95, to this effect, but we do not concur with it, as at present advised.

Here was a plea of...