Court Opinion

ID: 9640954
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:19:37.276898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:34.075261
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). Section 861, Revised Statutes (Comp. St. § 1468), of the United States is as follows:
“The mode of proof in the trial of actions of common law shall he by oral testimony and examination of witnesses in open court, except as -hereinafter provided.”
In Ex parte Fisk, 113 U. S. 713, 5 S. Ct. 728 (28 L. Ed. 1117), the court said of this section:
“This obviously means the production of the witness before the court at the time of trial, and his oral examination then; and it does not mean proof by reading depositions, though those depositions may have been taken before a judge of the court,’ or even in open court, at some other time than during the trial. They would not, in such ease, be oral testimony. The exceptions to this section, which all relate to depositions, also show that proof by deposition cannot he within the rule, but belongs exclusively to the exceptions.”
Revised Statutes, § 721 (Comp. St. § 1538), is as follows:
“The laws of the several states, except where the Constitution, treaties, or statutes of the United States otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rule Of decisions in trials at common law, in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply.”
The ex parte affidavit which the deceased, George Rowe, made in answer to questions by the attorney who had been engaged to bring suit to recover damages for his injuries, was not made admissible in evidence by.hav*273ing the attorney "who conducted his examination testify as to the questions which he put and the answers which were obtained.
I do not think the statute can be got around by such indirection. I therefore think there was error in the admission of the testimony of the attorney who conducted this examination and who was allowed to place it before the jury, and that the judgment of the District Court should be reversed.