Case ID: miss_2/html/0026-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Smith, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Collins, Appellant, v. Flowers.
    It is a well established, rule of evidence, that a member of a partnership can never be so far divested of his interest in the firm, by any act of himself and copartners, as to be made a competent witness in a matter relating to the partnership.
    THIS was an action of assumpsit in the circuit court of Co-vington county, by the defendant in this court against the plaintiff in error. A plea of non assumpsit was filed, upon which issue was taken. Upon the trial the defendant introduced as a witness Sidney E. Collins, by whom he offered to show, that at the time the account on which suit was instituted was contracted, said witness was a partner of the defendant; that the partnership had since been dissolved, and that said debt was contracted on account of the firm, and that said witness then had no interest in the firm, nor hacf he then any interest in the event of the suit. To this testimony the plaintiff objected and the witness was excluded; to which exception was taken, and an appeal, after judgment, to this court. The plaintiff in error now assigns the exclusion of said witness for error.
    Morris, for the appellant.
    The Attorney-General, contra.
    
   By the Court,

Smith, J.

This cause was brought into this court by appeal from the circuit court of Covington county.

The record presents but one subject for the consideration of the court; it is the question arising upon the rejection of the testimony of Sidney E. Collins, who was offered as a witness on the trial by the defendant below. It appears from the statement of Collins, the witness, that the demand of Richard Flowers, for which he had sued, was due originally by the defendant and himself as partners in trade; and that the amount attempted to be offset by defendant was due to them as a firm. And further, that his interest in the firm had ceased prior to the commencement of this action.

We understand it to be a well established rule of evidence that a member of a partnership can never be so far divested of his interest in the firm by any act of himself and copartners, as to be made a competent witness, in a matter relating to the partnership, whilst he was a member. There was therefore no error in the rejection of Collins’s testimony.

The judgment must be affirmed.