Case Name: Dent v. Society of the Friars Minor of Order of St. Francis
Court: New York Supreme Court, General Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1891-12-14
Citations: 16 N.Y.S. 684
Docket Number: 
Parties: Dent v. Society of the Friars Minor of Order of St. Francis.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 16
Pages: 684–684

Head Matter:
Dent v. Society of the Friars Minor of Order of St. Francis.
(Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department.
December 14, 1891.)
Deposition—Interrogatories not Pertinent to Issue.
Code Civil Proc. § 892, providing that either party must be allowed to insert in. interrogatories to be annexed to a commission for the examination of witnesses any question pertinent to the issue which he proposes, implies the converse,—that a party must not he allowed to insert any question not pertinent to the issue; and. the question of relevancy and materiality need not be reserved until the trial.
Appeal from special term, Kings county.
Action by Francis Dent against the Society of the Friars Minor of the Order of St. Francis. From an order disallowing certain cross-interrogatories proposed by plaintiff to be administered to witnesses to be examined on-commission at Rome, Italy, plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
Argued before Barnard, P. J., and Dykman and Pratt, JJ.
Francis Dent, in pro. per. Bliss & Schley, for respondent.

Opinion:
Dykman, J.
This is an appeal from an order of the special term disallowing certain cross-interrogatories to witnesses to be examined on commission, at Rome, in Italy. The action is for the recovery of damages for the deprivation of the plaintiff of his support and maintenance as a priest, and of his rights and privileges as a member of the Custodia of Buffalo of the Order of Friars Minor of the Strict Observance, incorporated as the Society of Friars Minor of the Order of St. Francis; and a perusal of the pleadings shows plainly that the rejected interrogatories are immaterial to any question which can be litigated upon the trial of this action. Under the provisions of the Code either party must be allowed to insert in interrogatories to be annexed to a commission for the examination of witnesses any question pertinent to. the issue which he proposes, and the converse of this rule is easily deduced,— that a party must not be allowed to insert in such interrogatories any question not pertinent to the issue. It is true, the question of relevancy and materiality might be reserved until the trial; but it is equally true that impertinent and irrelevant interrogatories should never be propounded. An, examination of the questions disallowed at the special term shows them to be objectionable in many respects, and we think they were properly rejected. The order should be affirmed, with $10 costs and disbursements.
All concur.
Section 892.