Case Name: JOHN J. KIERNAN, Respondent, v. FRANCIS A. ABBOTT, Impleaded with Manhattan Quotation Telegraph Company, Appellant
Court: New York Supreme Court, General Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1874-03
Citations: 8 N.Y. Sup. Ct. 109
Docket Number: 
Parties: JOHN J. KIERNAN, Respondent, v. FRANCIS A. ABBOTT, Impleaded with Manhattan Quotation Telegraph Company, Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: Supreme Court Reports (Hun)
Volume: 8
Pages: 109–109

Head Matter:
JOHN J. KIERNAN, Respondent, v. FRANCIS A. ABBOTT, Impleaded with Manhattan Quotation Telegraph Company, Appellant.
Emmination befoi'e trial—contempt—evidence.
In this action, brought by the plaintiff to obtain an injunction against the defendants. the issue between the parties, was, in substance, whether the appellant, Abbott, surreptitiously obtained the foreign news dispatches of plaintiff, and furnished them to his co-defendant, a rival of plaintiff in business. Plaintiff procured an order for the examination of Abbott before trial. Abbott, having testified that the news he furnished to his co-defendant, was obtained by him several times each day, directly by cable from London, and that the dispatches came to a banking house in New York, was asked: “What banking house was that ? ” He refused to answer. Held, that the question was a proper one; that the plaintiff was entitled to know through what banking house the dispatches were received, in order that he might have an opportunity to call the members and clerks of the house and examine them; and that the order, adjudging the defendant guilty of a contempt, and imposing a fine and imprisonment for refusing to answer it, was proper.
Appeal from an order at Special Term, in proceedings to examine the defendant, Abbott, before trial, adjudging him guilty of contempt, and imposing a fine and imprisonment for refusing to answer, on his examination before the referee, a question proposed by plaintiff’s counsel.
E. P. Cowles, for the appellant.
--, for the respondent.

Opinion:
Opinion per Curiam.
Present, Davis, P. J., and Daniels and Lawrence, JJ.
Order affirmed, with costs.