Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

27 Ill. 409

Buntain v. Bailey

Illinois Supreme Court

Decided January 15, 1862

Illinois Supreme Court · decided 1862-01-15

This case originated in a suit instituted before an acting justice of the peace in the county of Edgar, which resulted in a judgment in favor of said Bailey, and against the defendant Buntain, and was removed by Buntain into the Edgar Circuit Court, by appeal. At the October term, 1860, this cause was tried before Harlan, Judge, without the intervention of a jury.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““This court has so frequently decided that general objections to the instrument of evidence will not be entertained, that it is unnecessary, in this case, to do more than refer to the decisions. To go no further back, the case of Sargeant vs. Kellogg, Et Al, 5 Gilm. 281 , is understood to hold, that a general objection to the introduction of a certain instrument of evidence simply raises the question of its relevancy. But if it is obnoxious to a special objection, that objection must be stated. When various objections may be made to evidence, some of which may be removed by other proof, the party making the objection ought to point out specifically those he insists on, and thereby put the adverse party on his guard, and afford him an opportunity to obviate them. He ought not to be permitted, after interposing a general objection, to insist on particular objections in this court, which, if ever suggested in the court below, might have been instantly removed.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including A. L. Mechling Barge Lines, Inc. v. State

Relies on Swift v. Whitney · Funk v. Staats · Peoria & Oquawka Rail Road v. Neill

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1862-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently June 1961

13 state decisions

3018621870188018901900191019201930194019501960decided

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 →

Breese, J.

¶1This court has so frequently decided that general objections to the instrument of evidence will not be entertained, that it is unnecessary, in this case, to do more than refer to the decisions. To go no further back, the case of Sargeant v. Kellogg et al., 5 Gilm. 281, is understood to hold, that a general objection to the introduction of a certain instrument of evidence simply raises the question of its relevancy. But if it is obnoxious to a special objection, that objection must be stated. When various objections may be made to evidence, some of which may be removed by other proof, the party making the objection ought to point out specifically those he insists on, and thereby .put the adverse party on his guard, and afford him. an opportunity to obviate them. He ought not to be permitted, after interposing a general objection, to insist on particular objections in this court, which, if even suggested in the court below, might have been instantly removed.

¶2The transcript when offered in evidence was objected to, without specifying any particular grounds. Under the authority of the case of Frazer v. McKee, 1 Scam. 558, it would seem to be liable to but one objection, which, if pointed out on the trial, might have been removed, that is, the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace in the State of Indiana. Had that been the objection, it was quite easy to remove it, by producing the law of Indiana conferring the jurisdiction, and also, that the same law authorized the clerk to certify as to the official character.

¶3To the same effect are the cases of Peoria and Oquawka R. R. Co. v. Neill, 16 Ill. 269; Swift et al. v. Whitney, 20 Ill. 144; Conway v. Case, 22 Ill. 127; Funk v. Staats, 24 Ill. 633.

¶4The judgment must be affirmed.

¶5Judgment affirmed.

/27/ill/409 · .json · Public domain