Case ID: yeates_3/html/0558-01.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

Daniel De Benneville against George De Benneville.
    Where it is objected, that witnesses have been summoned unnecessarily to swell a bill o£ costs, court will interfere only in cases of manifest oppression.
    This was an action of trespass for mesne profits, wherein the plaintiff recovered $200 damages.
    An appeal was made from the prothonotary’s taxation of costs, on the ground that a number of unnecessary witnesses had been -subpoenaed by the plaintiff, .some of whom were material for the defendant, and had been called by him, while others had not been examined in the cause ; and that in the case of one witness in particular, an attachment had been taken out for him, though the plaintiff had been informed he was .infirm and unable to attend, and being brought a certain distance on the road, the carriage had broken down, so that he could not attend the court; yet the costs .of the attachment and service thereof had been taxed against the defendant.
    Messrs. Ingersoll and Dickerson, pro quer.
    
    Messrs. Rawle and Wells, pro def.
    
   By the Court.

No general rule can be laid down on the subject with safety to the suitors and the general practice. A party must come armed at all points. He cannot know what matters will be conceded by his adversary, nor what all his witnesses will testify. The necessity of calling a witness is often super-ceded by what passes in court, of which it is impossible to form any judgment before hand. One thing is certain, that the ex-pences of witnesses always exceed their legal allowance, which the party summoning them is generally obliged to pay. In the case of the witness, whose appearance was attempted to be enforced by the attachment, it would be absurd to suppose, that the plaintiff went to the expence of procuring a cárriage for him, merely that the defendant should be subjected to pay his legal fees. Such measures carry with them their own antidote. In questions like the present, manifest oppression must be shewn to justify the interposition of the court, and they will readily interfere in such instances. But a design to oppress will *559] never be presumed.

Appeal dismissed.