Case ID: dc_2/html/0684-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "the Court", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Patriotic Bank v. Nathaniel Frye.
    A bookkeeper, who has given a credit to A. instead of B., by mistake, is a competent witness to prove the mistake, without a release.
    Only what a witness recollects is competent evidence.
    A sum of $100 had been entered to the credit of the defendant, in his bank-book by Mr. Bradley, the plaintiffs’ bookkeeper, and he was called to be sworn and examined as a witness for the plaintiffs to prove the mistake and that the credit ought to have been given to the Franklin Insurance Company, who had, in fact, deposited the money.
    
      Mr. Coxe and Mr. Key, for the defendant,
    objected that the witness was interested, because he is chargeable for the loss if the plaintiffs should not recover it of this defendant.
    
      Mr. Key, for the defendant,
    contended, and the Court decided, that the testimony of the witness, as to that fact, is not evidence unless the witness’has a recollection of the fact, his memory being refreshed by his own memorandum.
   But

the Court

(Cranci-i, C. J.,'doubting,)

permitted him to be

examined, without a release from the plaintiffs.

The witness, when examined, had no distinct recollection that the deposit, on the 14th of December, 1822, was made by the Franklin Company, although the original entry of that deposit, to the credit of that Company, was in his handwriting.