Stevenson v. Stewart

• Decision Date: 01 July 1849
• Citation: 11 Pa. 307
• Parties: JOSEPH S. STEVENSON v. ELIZABETH D. STEWART, Administratrix of JOHN A. STEWART, deceased.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

11 Pa. 307

JOSEPH S. STEVENSON v. ELIZABETH D. STEWART, Administratrix of JOHN A. STEWART, deceased.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

ERROR to the Common Pleas of Lycoming.

Watson and Maynard, for plaintiff in error.

Armstrong, contrà.

The opinion of this court was delivered by BELL, J.

It is, undoubtedly, a rule governing the production and admission of evidence, that the evidence offered must correspond with the allegations and be confined to the point in issue. The effect is to exclude merely collateral facts, having no connexion with the subject litigated, and, therefore, incapable of shedding light upon the inquiry, or affording ground for reasonable presumption or inference. Thus, in covenant, the issue was whether the defendant, who was a tenant of the plaintiff, had committed waste, and evidence of bad husbandry, not amounting to waste, was rejected, for this could only have the effect of misleading the jury: Harris v. Mantle, 3, T. R. 307. But it by no means follows that all collateral facts, presenting at first view no direct connexion with the principal fact, are irrelevant, and therefore inadmissible. On the contrary, great latitude is allowed to the reception of indirect, or, as it is sometimes called, circumstantial evidence, the aid of which is constantly required, and, therefore, where direct evidence of the fact is wanting, the more the jury can see of the surrounding facts and circumstances, the more correct their judgment is likely to be: 1 Stark. Ev. 47-8. This indirect evidence is sometimes drawn from the experience which enables us to trace a connexion between an ascertained collateral fact and the fact otherwise undetermined; and it is more or less cogent, as this connexion is known to be more or less natural and frequent. Where antecedent experience shows this mutuality of relation to be constant or with a great degree of uniformity, the inference deducible, it is said, is properly termed a presumption. But this species of proof embraces a far wider scope than this. It in fact includes all evidence of an indirect nature, whether the inferences afforded by it be drawn from prior experience, or be a deduction of reason from the circumstances of the particular case, or of reason aided by experience. In the latter aspect, it is a conclusion, the value of which obviously depends on the force and directness with which it is derived from the premises, conceded or proved. But yet the competency of a collateral fact to be used as...