Court Opinion

ID: 9807693
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:13:19.643455+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:52:05.719468
License: Public Domain

Euecites, J.
(dissenting). I can not concur in the opinion of the Court. I think it is too plain for argument that a witness can not be allowed to do the work of the jury. The issue to be tried was whether the paper propounded was the last will and testament of Henry Allen, and the question involved was whether it was witnessed in his presence. The propounders, for the purpose of showing that it was, asked one Taylor, “Did you hear the witnesses testify here to-day as to the position Henry Allen was in at the time the witnesses signed the will; and from what the witnesses testified, and from your knowledge of the room, could Henry Allen have seen the witnesses and the paper-writing at the time the witnesses signed the same?” This was objected to, but allowed, and the caveators excepted. Witness Taylor then *480testified, under objection, as follows: “I liave been to Allen’s house recently. I measured the room, and it is seventeen feet long and fourteen feet wide. I have heard the witnesses testify as to Allen’s position, in the bed, and, from my knowledge of the room, Allen could have seen the witnesses and the paper.” This evidence was based upon what the witnesses testified to as to Allen’s position, and as to the place where the paper was signed. Taylor was not present when the paper was signed, and could not know the position of Allen, nor where the paper was when it was signed, except by the testimony of the witnesses that were there when it was signed. And to give the opinion he did he was compelled to pass upon the truth of the witnesses that had testified. If he had been an expert, he could not have done this, and the question and answer would have been improper. Indeed, it seems to me that the opinion of the Court in effect admitted that it was incompetent. This, I think, appears by the following sentence in the opinion: “What the witnesses evidently intended to say, and what they did say, substantially, -is that from their personal knowledge of the room and its furniture, if the testator were lying in the position testified to by the other witnesses, he could, as a matter of fact-, have seen the subscribing witnesses when they signed the will.” This is putting a, construction on the evidence that I think is not justified. But this construction does not cure the objection. It still leaves the witness’s (Taylor’s) opinion to rest upon what the other witnesses had testified to.