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26 Tex. 273

Flack v. Neill

Texas Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1862

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1862-07-01

xIppsal from Guadalupe. Tried below before the Hon. A. W. Terrell. This suit was instituted by B. D. Flack in his lifetime against the appellee, upon the promissory note of the latter for the sum Of $416 52, dated February 12th, 1853, and due the 1st of January, 1854. B. D. Flack having died, the suit proceeded in the name of his administrator.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““A communication cannot be considered as privileged because made in professional confidence, unless the person to whom it is made is acting for the time being in the character of legal adviser of the person who makes it. The communication must also be made for the purpose of obtaining professional advice or aid in the matter to which the communication relates.” Flack’s Adm’r v. Neill, 26 Tex. 273 .”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Miller

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1862-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently October 1978

6 state decisions

10186218701880189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Bell, J.

¶1We are of opinion that the charge of the court below to the jury was as favorable to the plaintiff as the circumstances of the case warranted; and that the only question presented by the record which is worthy of any consideration, arises upon the bill of exception to the refusal of the court below to rule out from the consideration of the jury a portion of the deposition of R. A. Rutherford. The plaintiff objected to the admission of so much of one of the depositions of the witness Rutherford as stated the terms of a conversation between himself and the deceased, R. D. Flack, in relation to the note sued on, and the manner in which the said Flack procured the execution of the note by the defendant, Neill, upon the ground that the communications made to Rutherford by Flack were privileged communications, made by Flack to Rutherford, in his character of an attorney-at-law. A communi*276cation cannot be considered as privileged, because made in professional confidence, unless the person to whom it is made is acting for the time being in the character of legal adviser of the person who makes it. The communication must also he made for the purpose of obtaining professional advice or aid in the matter to which the communication relates. (1 Grreenleaf’s Evid., sec. 239 and 240.) Tested by these rules, we are of opinion that the communication in question in this case cannot be considered as privileged. It does not seem to have been made for the purpose of obtaining professional advice. The most important part of it, in its bearing upon this- case, was made after the note was executed by Neill, and seems to have been a voluntary narrative of the circumstances attending a past transaction. Nor is it shown that Rutherford was the legal adviser of Flack at the time the conversation to which Rutherford testifies transpired between them. It was for the jury to attach that weight they thought proper to the testimony of the witness, and we think the court below did not err in refusing to disturb the verdict.

¶2The judgment of the court below is affirmed.

¶3Judgment affirmed.

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