Case Name: CRANE against WARD
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1810-05
Citations: 3 N.J.L. 650
Docket Number: 
Parties: [*] CRANE against WARD.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 3
Pages: 230–231

Head Matter:
[*] CRANE against WARD.
ON CERTIORARI.
Error of justice in recording a Christian name amendable by parol.
This was a certiorari from the Bergen common pleas. The defendant in certiorari, brought an- action before a justice, and recovered judgment. The plaintiff in certiorari, who was the defendant below, appealed to the common pleas; and on the trial before the common [482] pleas, the plaintiff in certiorari offered a witness, who was objected to by Ward, the plaintiff below, on the ground that it did not appear from the justice’s docket, that he had been a witness below. The fact was, that the justice, in taking down the name of the witness, had mistaken his Christian name, and written Samuel in the room of Nathaniel. The defendant, Crane, offered to prove by the witness himself, the mistake, and the fact that he himself was sworn and examined before the justice; and also the same facts by other witnesses. The court refused the testimony, on the ground that it would be admitting parol proof to contradict the justice’s record.

Opinion:
By the Court.
This was too rigid in a court of sum mary jurisdiction. A plain mistake of this nature ought to have been corrected by the oath of the witness himself, corroborated by other witnesses.
Judgment reversed.