Case ID: ohio-ch_1/html/0696-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

BENNET ET AL. v. KESARTY.
    Assumpsit — evidence—fact in opposition to declarations.
    
    Where proof is admitted of the declarations of a party as to a material fact, if no other person’s rights have been affected by it, it is competent for him to show the fact different from his declaration.
    Courts should decide on truth if within reach, not on falsehood.
    Assumpsit on a building contract. Plea non assumpsit.
    The plaintiff called a witness who testified, that he heard the defendant declare he had let a part of the job to another. The defendant’s counsel, on cross examination, asked the witness to state if, in fact, the job was ever let by the defendant.
    Whittlesey, for the plaintiff,
    objected, that the defendant could not falsify his own declarations.
    Giddings, contra.
   By the Court.

The plaintiff has called out the statement of the defendant as to a particular fact which he considers material, and hence will ask to find that fact proven. The plaintiff now offers to show that, in truth, the fact was not as he declared. The evidence offered goes direct to the fact itself, but is said to be incompetent, because it falsifies what the defendant said about it. Is this a reason for withholding the truth? No person has acquired or lost any thing by the statement of the defendant — no one’s interest has been in the slightest degree affected by it. Why, then, are we to shut out the truth and decide upon falsehood? We do not see. The question may be asked.