Good v. Knox

• Decision Date: 08 January 1892
• Citation: 23 A. 520,64 Vt. 97
• Parties: WILLIAM GOOD v. THOMAS KNOX AND GEO. K EATON
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

23 A. 520

64 Vt. 97

WILLIAM GOOD v. THOMAS KNOX AND GEO. K EATON

Supreme Court of Vermont

January 8, 1892

GENERAL TERM, OCTOBER, 1891

Assumpsit. Plea the general issue. Trial by jury at the December term, 1890, Caledonia county, Tyler, J., presiding. Verdict against the defendant Knox for $ 289.94, and for the defendant Eaton to recover his costs. The plaintiff excepts.

Judgment affirmed.

Bates & May, for the plaintiff.

OPINION

ROWELL

The statute provides that a party to a civil action may compel an adverse party to testify in his behalf in the same manner and subject to the same rules as other witnesses but that the party so called to testify may be examined by the opposite party under the rules applicable to the cross-examination of witnesses. R. L. 1089. Whatever right the party thus calling his adversary may have to impeach him when he is called to fix liability on himself, either joint or several, we think where he is called to fix liability on his co-defendant and not on himself, that in respect of impeachment he must be treated like other witnesses, or, in the words of the statute, "in the same manner and subject to the same rules as other witnesses." Hence there was no error in excluding inquiry of the defendant Knox as to claimed former contradictory statements by him.

The issue, whether plaintiff had been paid in wood, as defendants claimed, was found in plaintiff's favor therefore the exclusion of his offer to show that Harris owned the wood and that he knew it, as tending to show that he did not take it in payment as claimed, worked no harm neither on this score nor on the score of discrediting the witnesses...