Court Opinion

ID: 9689085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:19:03.847165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:44.412489
License: Public Domain

T. G. Kavanagh
{dissenting). I believe my brothers confuse “adverse interest” with “opposite party.”
■ Several persons could have an interest adverse to an estate. In each separate litigation the “opposite party” would be the one asserting the particular adverse interest which was the subject of the litigation. The statute would not bar testimony from any other person who happened to have a different adverse interest in the current litigation.
In the case before us Mrs. Morse conceivably had an interest adverse to the estate despite her disavowal of such, but in any event, she was not a party to this litigation asserting an interest opposite to the estate.
In Mitrage v. Bankers Life & Casualty Company (1964), 373 Mich 573, the very interest of the witness was transferred by assignment to the plaintiff who *40asserted it. In Caswell v. Smith’s Estate (1933), 263 Mich 390, the claim of the witness was held to have merged with that of her claimant husband. In Berry v. Adams (1899), 122 Mich 17, the witness had assigned her claim to plaintiff.
Where the same contract gives rise to two different rights in two different claimants, either claimant could be a competent witness in establishing the other’s claim. It is only when the witness shares (or has assigned the share) in the asserted claim that the statute bars the testimony.
I would reverse for a new trial.