Case ID: barb-ch_1/html/0408-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The Chancellor", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Anonymous.
    To entitle a complainant to an order authorizing him to be examined as a witness, to prove the facts stated in his bill, against an absent defendant who has not appeared in the cause, it should be stated in the bill, and sworn to, that the complainant has not the means of proving the matters which he wishes to' establish, except by his own oath, without an answer and discovery from the absent defendant.
    This was an application for a reference to a master to take proof of the facts stated in the bill, as against an absent defendant who had not appeared in the suit.
    
      J. Forsyth
    
    asked for a provision to he inserted in the order, authorizing the complainant to be examined, to prove, by his own oath, the facts stated in the bill.
   The Chancellor

said, it was not a matter of course to permit the complainant to be examined to prove the allegations in the bill, as against an absentee. He said the complainant should state in his bill, and verily it by his oath, that he cannot prove the matters charged in the bill, except by an answer and discovery from the absent defendant, unless he is permitted to prove them by his own oath. That upon such a bill, inasmuch as a discovery could not be obtained from an absentee who did not appear, the complainant might be permitted to prove the facts as to which a discovery from the defendant would be necessary, if he appeared in the cause; and did not suffer the bill to be taken as confessed against him after such appearance.