Case ID: ad_125/html/0640-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Gaynor, J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Robert H. McCarter Potter, Respondent, v. Grant Hugh Browne, Appellant.
    Second Department,
    April 24, 1908.
    Evidence — bias — rebuttal.
    It is always relevant and material for a party to prove any fact from which it may be found that a witness of the other side is hostile to or biased against him.
    Appeal by the defendant, Grant Hugh Browne, from a judgment of the Supreme Court in favor of the plaintiff entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Orange on the 4th day of March, 1907, upon the verdict of a jury, and also from an order entered in said clerk’s office on the 5th day of March, 1907, denying the defendant’s motion for a new trial made upon the minutes.
    The complaint is for the price of a stallion and mares sold by the plaintiff to the defendant. The answer pleads fraud in the contract ■ as a defense. The verdict was for the plaintiff.
    
      George C. Lay [Frederick W. Garvin with him on the brief], for the appellant.
    
      James W. Osborne [Charles J. Nehrbas with him on the brief], for the respondent.
   Gaynor, J.:

We are not asked to review the evidence, but to reverse on an exception to the admission of evidence.' A former, employe of the plaintiff was a witness for the defendant, and the plaintiff was permitted to testify in rebuttal that he upbraided him for misappropriation of funds and brutally beating a boy in discharging him therefor. It is always relevant and material for a party to prove any fact from which it may be found that a witness of the other side is hostile to or biased against him (People v. Brooks, 131 N. Y. 321; Garnsey v. Rhodes, 138 id. 461; Lamb v. Lamb, 146 id. 317; Brank v. Stratton, 176 id. 150). It is not a collateral but a material and relevant matter, and the denial of the witness on cross-examination is therefore not conclusive.

The judgment should be affirmed.

Woodward, Jerks, Hooker and Miller, JJ., concurred.

Judgment and order affirmed, with costs.