Hanson v. Township of Red Rock in Minnehaha County
| Decision Date | 27 April 1895 |
| Citation | 63 N.W. 156,7 S.D. 38 |
| Parties | HANSON v. TOWNSHIP OF RED ROCK, IN MINNEHAHA COUNTY, et al. |
| Court | South Dakota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. On cross-examination of a witness, it is competent to question him as to his interest in the subject-matter concerning which he has testified.
2. Where, on direct examination, a question to a witness is only preliminary, and does not indicate whether his answer would be material or not, or would necessarily disclose material evidence, and where there is no offer to prove the facts sought to be elicited, it is not material error to exclude the question.
3. Where, as in this case, the controlling question is one of fact, as, where is the true location of a boundary line? it is not material that a resurvey, locating the line as claimed by one of the parties, was made under an unauthorized contract.
On rehearing. Affirmed.
For report on appeal, see 57 N.W. 11.
This case is now before us on a rehearing. The original opinion is reported in 57 N.W. 11. In granting a rehearing, we were largely influenced by the importance of the questions involved, not alone to the immediate parties, but to a large number of other landowners in the township whose boundary lines were in similar controversy, and whose rights would be affected by the decision of this case. We have very carefully re-read the evidence claimed by either side to throw light upon the disputed question of fact, and are brought to the same conclusion announced in our former opinion. It would be profitless labor to go over the ground again.
There were, however, several errors assigned by appellant, based upon rulings of the trial court in allowing or refusing evidence, which seem not to have been expressly noticed in the opinion, and which will be briefly considered. Thomas Olson was a witness for plaintiff. He was a landowner within the territory within which the disputed lines were located. His evidence on his direct examination tended to place the corners and lines as claimed by plaintiff. On cross-examination he was asked how much land the location of the corners and lines where his testimony tended to place them would give him in his quarter section. The court overruled an objection to this question. We think the court was right. It tended very directly to show his interest in the very question in dispute, and as to which he was testifying. While his interest would not disqualify him as a witness, it might affect the weight of his testimony.
J. A Bannister, a witness for plaintiff, was asked: "Do you know according to what monuments or mounds the old settlers located their lands?" An objection to this question was sustained, and the ruling is assigned as error. We are inclined to think that affirmative evidence, of which this question might have been anticipatory, would have been competent, and we should have been better satisfied if the trial court had allowed the witness to answer; but the question was only preliminary, and a responsive answer to it would alone have been of no benefit to the plaintiff; hence he suffered nothing by not getting it. To show available error, the plaintiff should have gone further, and offered to prove the substantive fact to which this question of knowledge on...
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