Case Name: Oliphant against Taggart
Court: South Carolina Court of Common Pleas
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1792-05
Citations: 1 Bay 255
Docket Number: 
Parties: Oliphant against Taggart.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 1
Pages: 255–256

Head Matter:
Oliphant against Taggart.
Proof of the hand-writing of a witness to a bond who is dead or gone beyond sea, is and regular a order to let in. the plaintiff to prove the hand-writing of an obligor» But if an affidavit be pro-, dueed of the witness himself, who swears that he never saw the obligor execute the bond, it is a good ground for the court to postpone the trial till the witness can be lullyexamined on interrogatories touching the trans\ action»
DEBT on a bail-bond. A Monsieur Bonnefons had been arrested, and held to bail at the plaintiff’s suit, and the bond returned into the sheriff’s office, with the name of the defendant subscribed to it, as security for Bonnefons5 appearance, who afterwards left the country. The bail-bond was not witnessed by the sheriff, or any of his deputies, but by an acquaintance of Bonnefons, who had departed for Frame shortly after the commencement of the action.
Lining, for plaintiff,
offered to produce a witness to prove, not only the defendant’s hand-writing, but also the hand-writing of the witness to the bond, and of Bonnefons himself. To which
Pihckney objected, under the circumstances of the case ; and produced to the court, the affidavit of. the witness, made previous to his departure for France; in which he positively swore, that he had never seen the defendant, Taggart, sign the bond in question.

Opinion:
The Court
obser-ved, that this was an extraordinary case, much out of the usual course of things. That the evidence offered for the plaintiff, was very regular and proper, m case of the death or absence "from the state, of the sub-scriking witness to the bond, in order to let in the plaintiff, to Prove ^le hand-writing of the obligors. But, on the other hand, the affidavit of the witness himself, gave this affair, at least, such a suspicious appearance, that it would be improper to let it go to the jury, until the matter was cleared up.
A commission was, therefore, directed to issue, to examine the witness to the bond, upon interrogatories and cross-interrogatories, to be put by the parties.