Case ID: vt_55/html/0348-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Rowell, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JOHN BECKLEY v. RUSSELL JARVIS.
    
      Evidence.
    
    1. As bearing on the question, when payment was to be made, whether before or after the wood was all delivered, it is competent to show that the vendor was financially involved at the time the contract was made.
    2. The judgment of the court below will not be reversed, though irrelevant testimony was received, if harmless.
    Assumpsit. Heard on a referee’s report, December Term, 1882, Taft, J., presiding. Judgment for the plaintiff to recover $101.26. The referee found:
    “ The parties made a verbal contract by which the plaintiff was to deliver to the defendant’s mill one hundred cords of wood for fuel at $3.25 per cord within one. year, to be paid for in four equal payments, viz., when twenty-five cords should be delivered, the defendant was to pay the plaintiff therefor, &c. Twenty-seven cords and twenty-two feet of wood were delivered. The plaintiff asked the defendant to pay him for twenty-five cords, which he refused to do, claiming that the contract was that the. whole should be delivered before any payment was to be made.”
    
      One of the plaintiff’s witnesses was asked, “ What were Beckley’s circumstances as to property at that time ? ” (when the contract was made). Answer: “He was involved at that time.” Some irrelevant testimony was received by the referee; as, the the plaintiff was asked, and answered, “ Did you carry on your farm yourself that year ? ”
    
      William Batehelder, for the plaintiff.
    
      S. W. Parker and Gilbert A. Davis, for the defendant.
   The opinion of the court was delivered by

Rowell, J.

It was competent to show that plaintiff was involved at the time the contract was made, as bearing on the question of when payment was to be made, — whether by installments, as plaintiff .claimed, or not until the wood was all delivered, as defendant claimed.

The other evidence objected to was entirely irrelevant and harmless. Let the judgment be affirmed.