Case ID: va_6/html/0301-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per. Cur.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*Meade v. Tate.
    [April Term, 1800.]
    Witness — Competency—Interest—Case at Bar. — A witness received to prove that he paid a sum of money for the defendant to the agent of the plaintiff’s assignors in discharge of the obligation upon which the suit was brought.
    Tate assignee of William and James Donald and company, brought debt in the County Court against Nicholas Meade, upon a penal bill. The defendant plead payment. And on the trial of the issue the plaintiff filed a bill of exceptions stating, that the defendant introduced the deposition of William Meade, who said, that some time before the above company’s agent Robert Montgomerie left .the . county of Bedford, the deponent paid him a sum of money, he thinks about thirty pounds, perhaps a little more or less, in discharge of a debt due by Nicholas Meade the defendant to the said company, for which they had his the said Nicholas’s bond or note, which when applied for, the deponent was informed by the said Montgomerie, that it had been sent off with the books of the company, and in lieu thereof he obtained a receipt in full of the debt aforesaid. Which receipt is either lost or mislaid. That the money so paid was not in discharge of aught that was due from the deponent to the said Nicholas, but was paid by the deponent at the special request of the said Nicholas, who thereby became indebted to the deponent in the sum so paid. That the defendant also introduced a witness who said, that William Meade was heard to say, that Nicholas had paid him the money he had advanced to William and James Donald and company, before the bringing of the suit. That the plaintiff objected to reading of the deposition aforesaid, as illegal evidence; but that he was overruled by the court.
    Verdict and judgment for the defendant. Whereupon the plaintiff appealed to the District Court.
    The District Court was of opinion that the judgment was erroneous, in this, “That the *County Court permitted the deposition of William Meade who was interested in the event of this suit to go as evidence to the jury.” It therefore reversed the judgment, with costs; set-aside the proceedings subsequent to the issue; and sent the cause back to the County Court for further proceedings to be had therein. Meade appealed from the judgment of the District Court to this court.
    Randolph for the appellant
    contended that the witness was not interested, and therefore that the judgment of the District Court was erroneous.
    
      
      Witness — Competency — Interest. — The principal case is cited with approval in Kerr v. Dixon, 2 Call 386.
      See Stump v. Roberts, Fed. Cas. No. 13,561; Cogbill v. Cogbill, 3 H. & M. 467; Harvey v. Alexander, 1 Rand. 319, 10 Am. Dec. 519; Taylor v. Moore, 3 Rand. 563; Jones v. Raine, 4 Rand. 388; Eacho v. Cosby, 26 Gratt. 112; Grayson v. George, 85 Va. 908, 9 S. E. Rep. 13; Radford v. Fowlkes, 85 Va. 820, 8 S. E. Rep. 817; Trowbridge v. Stone, 42 W. Va. 454, 26 S. E. Rep. 363; Farmers’ Bank v. Gould, 42 W. Va. 132, 24 S. E. Rep. 547. See monographic note on “Husband and Wife” appended to Cleland v. Watson, 10 Gratt. 159. The principal case is cited in Stager v. Eggleston, 5 Call 458.
    
   Per. Cur.

Reverse the judgment of the District Court; and affirm that of the County Court.