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206 Pa. 87

Hottle v. Weaver

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided May 11, 1903

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1903-05-11

Appeal, No. 220, Jan. T., 1902, by defendant, from judgment of C. P. Bucks Co., Sept. T., 1901, No. 57, on verdict for plaintiff in case of Henry Hottle and Daniel M. Landis, Committee of the Person and Estate of Henry Hottle, a Lunatic, v. Milton H. Weaver. Assumpsit on three promissory notes. Before Yerkes, P. J. At the trial it appeared that Henry Hottle was a lunatic, and that the defendant was a physician who had attended Henry Hottle and Hottle’s deceased wife.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1903-05-11

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently January 1934

8 state decisions

301903191019201930decided

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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Per Curiam,

¶1The memorandum in the defendant’s book of original entries was in form a receipt by defendant for a conditional payment by plaintiff on account of the charges in the book against him. As against the note sued on the condition was in relief of defendant, and even if the receipt had been signed by him, it would not have been evidence in his favor, while being retained in his own possession. A party cannot make evidence for himself in that way. There was nothing therefore to take this entry out of the ordinary category of a written memorandum of a conversation or a contract made by the witness at the time but not signed by the parties, and available to refresh the witness’s recollection, but not in itself evidence.

¶2The second and third assignments of error are substantially that the court held the finding of lunacy by the inquisition to be conclusive. But it.does not appear that any such ruling was made. A witness testified that he was present at a certain date and saw the defendant pay the plaintiff money, and was asked what the plaintiff (now a lunatic) said, when objection was sustained, the ground not appearing on the record but apparently being that the time was within the period covered by the finding of the inquisition. Such finding was prima facie evidence of lunacy at the time referred to by the witness and it does not appear that the court gave it any greater force. In refusing a new trial the judge said: “ The reasons based upon the failure to admit evidence of statements by Mr. Hottle during lucid intervals, fall through their own weakness. There was no offer to prove such statements while lucid, and at the argument for a new trial there was no testimony to show that such evidence could be produced.”

¶3Judgment affirmed.

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