Case ID: del-cas_1/html/0458-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Bassett, C. J., Johns, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

LUDENHAM v. RICHARDS’ EXECUTOR.
    Court of Common Pleas. Sussex.
    April, 1798.
    
    
      Bayard’s Notebook, 227.
      
    
    
      
       This case is dated 1798 by Bayard and follows in order the dates of the cases in this notebook, but the account of the case by Wilson appears among the eases dated 1796.
    
    
      
       This case is also reported in Wilson’s Red Book, 101.
      
    
   Bassett, C. J.,

said that it was not material by whom the entries were made. It was still the book of the party and admissible under the Act of Assembly. The second objection he considered as fatal. He never would admit a book fabricated after the death of a man to prove charges which had no existance during the party’s life. It was rightly said the precedent would be extremely dangerous. Bad men might be encouraged to make accounts against the estates of deceased persons reflecting on the difficulty, nay the impossibility of detection, when the person who alone perhaps could have knowledge of the transaction was for ever removed out of the way.

Johns, J.,

said he was decidedly of opinion that the book was inadmissible and that he fully concurred in what had been said by the Chief Justice as to the danger of admitting accounts not made till after the death of the party charged.

Book rejected.