Hill v. Hill's Administrator
| Decision Date | 01 January 1858 |
| Citation | 32 Pa. 511 |
| Parties | Hill versus Hill's Administrator. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Guernsey, Lowrey & Wilson, for the plaintiff in error.
Sherwood and H. W. Williams, for the defendant in error.
Had the certificate of the marriage been offered by itself, it would not have been admissible. But it was offered in connection with the testimony of a witness, that Burdick Hill had exhibited it as a certificate of his marriage, had stated that he got it from the magistrate, and had read it to the witness. Taken in that connection, it was properly received, as furnishing some evidence, not of the marriage, but of Hill's acknowledgment of the alleged marriage.
The notice to the administrator was also admissible in evidence. The want of an averment in the declaration of a day certain when the alleged injury was done, was no reason for rejecting evidence. The defendant had the means of compelling such an averment, but he could not do it by resisting the introduction of evidence to support the averments that were made. The substance of the notice was laid with sufficient accuracy in the declaration.
We do not perceive upon what principle Burdick Hill's declarations in denial of the marriage could have been admitted, nor was it erroneous to exclude the testimony offered of what people called the plaintiff in the neighbourhood, or of what she was always called. There had been no attempt to prove the marriage by reputation. The testimony was not, therefore, to meet anything which had been proved by the plaintiff. We do not enter upon the doubtful question, whether marriage can be proved or disproved by reputation. It has been asserted that it can be, and in one case it was perhaps so ruled; Evans v. Morgan, 2 C. & J. 453. But it will be found, on the examination of the cases relied upon to support the doctrine, that the evidence received was not of reputation, but of independent facts from which a marriage might be inferred. The evidence offered here was, of the declarations of persons who might themselves have been called as witnesses.
The seventh and ninth exceptions also cannot be sustained. We think, however, that the court erred in rejecting R. W. Toles, Eddy Howland, and John Hill, witnesses called on the part of the defendant. It was supposed, that they were interested, either as heirs of Burdick Hill, or as bail in the defendant's...
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In re Foley's Estate
...to prove the marriage, and are incompetent where the sole reliance is upon direct evidence of an express contract. He cites Hill v. Hill's Adm'r, 32 Pa. 511; Hull Rawls, 27 Miss. 471, 473; Thompson v. Nims, 83 Wis. 261, 53 N.W. 502, 17 L.R.A. 847; Hulett v. Carey, 66 Minn. 327, 69 N.W. 31, ......
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Topper v. Perry
...here is one of pedigree, which we have seen by numerous decisions, is taken out of this general rule. We are cited by counsel to Hill v. Hill, 32 Pa. 511, in which the court excluded declarations of the decedent to disprove his marriage with the plaintiff, but a reading of that case will in......
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In re Comly's Estate
... ... 2 S. & R. 475; Covert v. Hertzog, 4 Pa. 145; ... Thorndell v. Morrison, 25 Pa. 326; Hill v ... Hill, 32 Pa. 511; Kenyon v. Ashbridge, 35 Pa ... 157; Guardians of the Poor v. Nathans, 5 ... ...
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Marshall v. Carr
...Carr after her marriage to the defendant, to the effect that she was a widow, or not married to the defendant, were inadmissible: Hill v. Hill, 32 Pa. 511; Moore's Est., 9 Pa. C.C.R. The finding or statement made by the Board of Pardons to the Governor that she was a widow, was inadmissible......