Case ID: mass_6/html/0214-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Aaron Vail versus Elijah Nickerson.
    Of the manner of administering oaths in France.
    
    Where the plaintiff, in an action upon contract, is delayed of his judgment, by the unsuccessful motion of the defendant for a new trial, he shall always have interest on the sum found by the verdict, from the time of finding the same to the time of judgment
    In this action, which was on contract, Fuller, of counsel for the defendant, moved for a new trial; one of the grounds of which motion was the admission by the judge, at the trial, of a deposition of a M. Coquebat, taken in France, and which was objected to, as containing no evidence that an oath had been administered to the deponent.
    The deposition began thus : “ jDefait le sieur Coquebat a la moine droite levee, declare,” &c.; and it concluded thus:
    “ Telle est sa declaration, qu’apres lecture il a reconnue ajjime et signee. La minute est signee G. Coquebat.”
    “De laquelle declaration nous,juge de paix surdid, avons decernee acte, pour savoir et valoir ce qui sera juge appartenir.”
    
    
      C. Davis, for the plaintiff,
    observed, that this was the only legal method used in France of administering and certifying an oath; and he moved that M. Giraud, the French consul for the New England states resident in Boston, might be examined on oath.
    The consul, being sworn, testified that the form here certified was the usual and legal form of swearing witnesses in France; J * 263 ] it was Serment; the raising the right hand was * taken as implying an oath; and this was the regular manner of certifying it. He had himself frequently administered and certified oaths in this form, when acting as a magistrate in France.
    
    The objection was overruled, and judgment rendered on the verdict.
    
      Davis moved for interest on the sum found due to the plaintiff by the verdict.
    
      
      
        M. Giraud, who was, as the reporter has been informed, an eminent civilian be» fore the French revolution, observed, that this was also the ancient mode, in France, of administering oaths to laymen, but that the clergy, instead of raising their right hand, nlaced it upon their breast.
    
   Per Curiam.

When a plaintiff in an action upon contract is delayed of his judgment by the unsuccessful motion of the defendant for a new trial, or when the defendant fails of establishing exceptions, &c., the clerk shall of course add to the amount found due by the verdict, interest thereon from the time it was returned to the day of entering the judgment.