M'Veaugh v. Goods

Decided September 15, 1781

Supreme Court of the United States · decided 1781-09-15

CERTAIN goods of British manufacture being imported into the County of Philadelphia, contrary to the Act of Assembly, passed the 10th of September 1778, they were attached, and this information filed against them. The owners of the goods exhibited a claim, and the merits of the case were brought to trial, at an adjourned court, on the 10th of January 1782, when the following points of evidence were ruled.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1781-09-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently January 1840

4 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1But,

By the Court

¶2:——It nearly concerns the administration of justice, that witnesses should be free from every kind of biass. It is true, that Scull has no positive promise of a reward; but, we think, the expectation which he acknowledges, in case the goods shall be condemned, must create such an influence in his mind, as renders it improper for him to give testimony on this occasion.

¶3Lewis offered in evidence a pass from a justice of New Jersey, permitting the goods in question to be conveyed through that State.

¶4Sergeant objected, that the pass of a justice of New Jersey, could not be given in evidence to defeat an Act of the Legislature of Pennsylvania.

¶5To this Lewis replied, that it was offered merely to obviate any imputation of fraud in concealing it.

¶6But, By the Court it was declared, that the pass was admissible as evidence.