Case Name: WILLIAM RICKARDS' LESSEE v. ELIAS RICKARDS
Court: Delaware Court of Common Pleas
Jurisdiction: Delaware
Decision Date: 1798-11
Citations: 1 Del. Cas. 200
Docket Number: 
Parties: WILLIAM RICKARDS’ LESSEE v. ELIAS RICKARDS.
Judges: 
Reporter: Delaware Cases
Volume: 1
Pages: 200–200

Head Matter:
WILLIAM RICKARDS’ LESSEE v. ELIAS RICKARDS.
Court of Common Pleas. Sussex.
November, 1798.
Wilson’s Red Book, 214.
Bayard and Vining objected to the plot.
Proving the plot was read and shown on the former trial will not make it evidence. It has not been filed and is no part of the record. It has been ever since in the possession of the party. We could not have had access to it. As detached from the proceedings in that cause, it is no evidence, being the party’s own private survey.
Bidgely and Wilson.
What witnesses have sworn on a former trial may be proved on a second, if dead. This plot is part of the evidence then exhibited, and we prove it the same now that it was then. This plot cannot be called a private survey, for it was made in the presence of the plaintiff and the former jury, which was equivalent to a cross-examination on deposition.

Opinion:
Bassett, C. J.
We are of opinion this plot is not evidence. It should have been filed to make it part of the proceedings in the former cause. The defendant was at liberty to have run the same lines and placed them on his pretensions in this cause.
Defendant's counsel offered a copy of courses of "Digg'spoint," which recited very briefly a warrant and gave the courses and distances in words and figures, and the quantity without plot or naming itself to be a survey, certified by Callahan with seal of office as truly extracted, etc. Objected to, and submitted to the court without argument.
Bassett, C. J.
This is the manner of certifying surveys from Maryland as extracts of course without plots.
It was read.