Case ID: tenn_29/html/0384-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "McKinney, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

James vs. Jones.
    The plaintiff' sued for his freedom, and offered in evidence the record of a suit instituted by one claimed to be a relation by the maternal side, in which said relation established his right to freedom. This was admissible evidence; the force and effect to be determined by the jury.
    James, a person of color, instituted an action of trespass vi et armis, in the circuit court of Rutherford, against Jones. Jones held James as a slave, and the action was brought to assert his right to freedom. On the trial before judge Turner and a jury, the plaintiff offered in evidence the record of suit brought by James in the circuit court of Davidson county against Prichard, which resulted in a verdict for plaintiff, by which he obtained his freedom. It was insisted that James, the plaintiff in the action against Pritchard, was a relation of the plaintiff in this action.
    
      J. F. Jones, for the plaintiff.
    He cited Vaughan vs. Phoebe, Martin & Yerger; Cooke 142; 2 Hen. & Munf. 193, 211.
    
      Keéble and Ready, for the defendant.
   McKinney, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

We think the circuit judge erred in rejecting the record of the suit of James vs. Pritchard, offered as evidence in behalf of the plaintiff on the trial of this cause.

The question respecting the competency and admissibility of the record, as evidence, is wholly different from that which respects its sufficiency and effect. The former question belongs exclusively to the court; and the latter is as exclusively within the province of the jury.

The admissibility of the record, offered as evidence in the present case, cannot be questioned, and it should have been permitted to go to the jury, with proper instructions from the court; as the question, whether or not it legitimately tended to establish the fact of relationship between the plaintiff in that case and the plaintiff in the present action, or any other fact relevant tto the issue joined between the parties, was a matter for the consideration and determination of the jury. And, therefore, in rejecting the record, the court assumed the province of the jury, and decided not merely the question of competency, but likewise the effect or sufficiency of the evidence; this was error.

The judgment will be reversed and a new trial awarded.