Case Name: John D. Bonnet v. Robert Dickson
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1863-12
Citations: 14 Ohio St. 434
Docket Number: 
Parties: John D. Bonnet v. Robert Dickson.
Judges: 
Reporter: Ohio State Reports, New Service
Volume: 14
Pages: 434–435

Head Matter:
John D. Bonnet v. Robert Dickson.
The testimony of a witness, reduced to writing and signed by himself, at a hear» ing before a master commissioner, is, after the decease of such witness, admissible in any subsequent trial of the case in court.
Error to the district court of Muskingum county.
In a civil action pending in the court of common pleas of Muskingum county, an order was made, referring the cause to a master commissioner, to state an account between the parties, giving him authority to examine witnesses under oath.
On July 16,1857, the master drew and signed a notice entitled of the cause pending in said court, under reference aforesaid, notifying the defendant that he would hear testimony in the cause, on the 1st day of the next September, at 9 o’clock, -A. m., and continuously thereafter, by adjournment, until all the testimony offered was taken. The notice does not state at what particular place the' testimony would be taken. On the day of its date, the notice was mailed by the master to the address of the defendant’s attorney, in a distant county in the state, and by him received in due course of mail. •;
The hearing before the master was had at the time specified in the notice, but it does not appear that either the defendant or his attorney was present at the hearing. The plaintiff, hoAvever, was present, and offered D. as a witness, who, being first duly sworn by the master to testify the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, reduced his own testimony to writing, and signed it, and the same, together with the master’s report, was- certified by the master to the common pleas, wherein the report was set aside, trial had and appeal taken.
At the trial of the -cause in the district court, the witness being dead, the plaintiff offered in evidence the said written testimony of the witness taken before the master, but, on objection by the defendant, as to the admissibility of the written testimony, but not as to any defect of notice, or to the time and place of its being taken, the court excluded said testimony.
Haynes, Ball, Hamilton &¡ Granger, for plaintiff in error.
Hamsay &¡ Olds, for defendant in error.

Opinion:
By the Court.
Held," that the testimony 'of a deceased witness, formerly given in the same case, the same was competent; that the district court erred in excluding it; and its judgment being for the defendant, the sanie is reversed, and the cause remanded.