Case Name: C. A. BONNETT v. GRACE E. KEIFFER, Administratrix
Court: Oregon Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Oregon
Decision Date: 1925-06-30
Citations: 115 Or. 244
Docket Number: 
Parties: C. A. BONNETT v. GRACE E. KEIFFER, Administratrix.
Judges: Bean, Brown and Belt, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Oregon Reports
Volume: 115
Pages: 244–250

Head Matter:
Argued June 16,
affirmed June 30, 1925.
C. A. BONNETT v. GRACE E. KEIFFER, Administratrix.
(237 Pac. 1.)
For appellant there was a brief and oral argument by Mr. Henry H. Slattery.
For respondents there was a brief over the names of Mr. G. A. Hardy and Mr. A. E. Wheeler, with an ' oral argument by Mr. Hardly.

Opinion:
McBBIDE, C. J.
Objection is made to certain instructions in relation to the statute of limitations and the statute of frauds, but in view of the fact that the jury found specially that the alleged contract was never made, these instructions, even if erroneous as claimed, could not have affected the verdict or the result in any way.
The objection most strongly and plausibly made is to the giving, by the court, of the two instructions above quoted.
It is contended that Section 3c of Article VII of our Constitution in some way has prescribed a rule of evidence which takes the place of the old rule enunciated in the instructions above quoted. The particular sentence in the section of the Constitution cited, which is supposed to have worked this change, reads as follows:
"No fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of this state, unless the court can affirmatively say there is no evidence to support the verdict."
We fail to see wherein the cautionary instructions above quoted infringe upon the provisions of the Constitution. The jury were plainly told that they were the exclusive judges of the facts and of the value and effect of the evidence, but it was not improper to caution them that, in weighing such evidence, they ought to be governed by those rules, which age-long experience has shown to be necessary in arriv ing at a just couclusiou in cases of this character. If the evidence adduced appeared to them to be strong and convincing, they were at liberty to act upon it and the judge would have no right to set it aside, because it did not appear to him to be strong and convincing.
This instruction has been approved by this court since the adoption of the constitutional amendment of 1910 containing the language above quoted; Scott v. Merrill's Estate, 74 Or. 568 (146 Pac. 99); Branch v. Lambert, 103 Or. 423 (205 Pac. 995).
In the latter case, the instruction was refused, but the court held that other instructions, based upon statutory requirements, were equivalent of the one requested, and on that ground held the instruction requested to be superfluous. The court, in the case at bar, gave substantially the same instructions as were given in that case, and if the instructions are equivalent of each other, they cannot be contradictory as suggested by appellant's counsel.
The words, "competent evidence," used in the statute in relation to the corroboration of a claim against a decedent's estate, are not used in reference to the weight of the evidence with the jury, but are employed with reference to its admissibility as a matter of law. Evidence may be "competent" and yet not convincing. When the court admitted the testimony of plaintiff's wife, it thereby decided that the evidence was competent, that is, admissible; but it did not thereby foreclose itself from stating to the jury the rules by which the value of even "competent evidence" in cases of this character should •be tested and which are eminently necessary to the protection of estates from fictitious claims.
We find no error in this case and the judgment is affirmed. Affirmed.
Bean, Brown and Belt, JJ., concur.