Case ID: mass_80/html/0130-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Shaw, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Michael Livesey vs. Edward Bennett.
    A deposition, certified by the magistrate in the caption to be taken because the witness is about to go out of the Commonwealth, is admissible if the witness is out of the State at the time of the trial, although he testifies in the deposition that he has no present purpose of leaving the State.
    Action of contract upon a promissory note, witnessed by Jonathan Slade. Answer, a denial of the signature.
    At the trial in the court of common pleas in Bristol, at March term 1859, the plaintiff offered the deposition of Slade, taken in Fall River, in the caption of which the magistrate certified that “ the deponent being about to go out of the Commonwealth. and not to return in time for the trial, is the cause of taking this deposition.” And there was evidence that, soon after the taking of the deposition, Slade left the State and had not since returned.
    In the deposition, Slade testified: “ My name is Jonathan Slade. I live in the city of Fall River. Am an apprentice in the jewelry business. I am twenty years of age. If Mr. Shove keeps on in business, I shall probably stay; if he stops, I shall probably leave. I do not know where else I should get employment in Fall River in the same business.” And to a cross-interrogatory, “ Have you any present purpose of leaving the Commonwealth ? ” he answered “ No.”
    The defendant objected to the admission of the deposition, on the ground that there was, at the time, no sufficient cause for taking it. But Aiken, J. overruled the objection, and admitted the deposition. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and the defendant alleged exceptions.
    
      C. I Reed, for the defendant,
    cited Rev. Sts. c. 94, § 14; Littlehale v. Dix, 11 Cush. 365; West Boylston v. Sterling, 17 Pick. 126.
    
      L. Lapham., for the plaintiff,
    was stopped by the court.
   Shaw, C. J.

The deposition was rightly admitted. When a deposition is taken with a view to a future trial, it is always subject to contingencies. All future events are contingent. The substance of the certificate in the caption is this; that the party taking the deposition fears, apprehends, believes that the witness is going to be absent, and this appears to the magistrate to be reasonable. The security against the abuse of this power is that, if the party is not right in his apprehension, he cannot use the deposition; the witness must be produced if the anticipated cause, or some sufficient cause, does not exist at the time of the trial. Here the event showed the party was right. The witness himself being a young man, without family or business to bind him here, made his going out of the state dependent on a contingency not within his knowledge or power. West Boylston v. Sterling, 17 Pick. 128. Exceptions overruled.