Court Opinion

ID: 9694835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:56:32.576934+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:05.434690
License: Public Domain

Kenison, C. J.,
dissenting in part: The majority ruling is that a mother, the person most likely to know, cannot testify to the non-access of her husband in a bastardy proceeding. Since that is to be the law of this state, it may be proper to mention briefly some counter considerations. This rule of evidence was a historical accident when it was first invented by Lord Mansfield in an ejectment action decided in 1777 (Goodright v. Moss, 2 Cowp. 591, 98 Eng. Rep. 1257) and no modern text on the law of evidence supports it. Schatkin, Disputed Paternity Proceedings (3rd ed. 1953) c. 3. Wigmore criticizes this rule of evidence as dogmatic, inconsistent and Pharisaical and concludes that there “never was any true precedent for the rule; and there is just as little reason of policy to maintain it.” VII Wig. Ev. (3rd ed.) ss. 2063, 2064. McCormick, Evidence, s. 67 (1954) agrees that this is a just criticism and states that it is an “eccentric incompetency” which some courts have “wisely rejected” and recommends in “view of the impolicy of the rule” that it be given a restrictive application. Cf. The Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Law, enacted in 1953, which provides that husband and wife “may be compelled to testify to any relevant matter, including marriage and parentage.” RSA 546:24.