Case ID: ny-st-rep_38/html/0006-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Van Brunt, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John Claflin et al, Resp’ts, v. John F. Eagan et al, App’lts.
    
      (Supreme Court, General Term, First Department,
    
    
      Filed April 17, 1891.)
    
    Venue—Change of.
    An action to set aside an assignment for creditors should be removed to the county in which all the transactions in question took place, where it appears that a large number of witnesses on the question of their good faith reside in said county, and the motion to change the venue to said county cannot be defeated by a stipulation by plaintiffs that they will not call any witnesses to contradict defendants' evidence if they will confine it to two i interested witnesses.
    Appeal from an order entered upon a motion made by the defendants to change the place of trial from New York county to the county of Dutchess.
    This action is brought to set aside an assignment for the benefit of creditors made by the defendants Eagan & Hunt to the defendant Wood. There was no real estate conveyed by the said assignment, so that the title thereto is not involved, and the motion is based solely on the ground of the convenience of witnesses.
    The court below held that the motion should be denied upon plaintiffs making the stipulations specified in their affidavits.
    The court, upon a former hearing, delivered the following opinion:
    Per Curiam.-—The affidavits used upon the hearing of the motion fully justified the order which was made, sending this case to Dutchess county for trial, where the transactions occurred upon which its disposition depends.
    The order should be affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.
    
      Charles Morschauser, for app’lts ; Kneeland, Stewart & Epstein, for resp’ts.
   Van Brunt, P. J.

When this appeal was before the court upon a previous occasion, the court fell into the error of supposing that the motion to change the venue had been granted, and upon examination of the papers saw no reason why they should interfere with that supposed result.

It is supposed by the respondents, that by the stipulation which they have made, they have avoided the claim of the appellants in respect to the number of their witnesses.

The whole of the transactions which are the subject of this action occurred in Dutchess county, and their good faith depends upon the evidence which the defendants can offer in respect thereto, and they cannot be deprived of the right to such evidence by a stipulation upon the part of the plaintiffs that they will not call any witnesses to comradict the evidence of the defendants if they will confine it to two interested witnesses. It may be true that the stipulation might avoid the necessity of calling two or three of the defendants’ witnesses, but that is all. It is evident that the plaintiffs have amplified the number of witnesses beyond tbe number intended to be called, as is too usual in cases of this description.

We think that all these transactions having arisen in Dutchess county, and it being apparent that a large number of witnesses there residing must be called, the order appealed from should be reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and the motion granted.

Daniels and Lawrence, JJ., concur.