Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

27 Tex. 282

Thompson v. Herring

Texas Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1863

Texas Supreme Court · decided 1863-07-01

Tried below before the Hon. N. W. Battle. This suit was brought by the appellee against B. J. Thompson and B. J. Lewis, for -the purpose of removing clouds from the title to and obtaining possession of a tract of 738 acres of land in Bell county, claimed by the plaintiff.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1863-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently January 1962

4 state decisions

2018631870188018901900191019201930194019501960decided

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 →

Moore, J.

¶1The judgment in this case must be reversed. The ruling of the court in admitting the declarations of Lewis after his conveyance to Thompson, for the purpose of showing fraud on the part of Thompson, was clearly erroneous. It is perfectly well settled that the declarations of a party not in possession, after he has parted with the title, can not be received for any purpose against his vendee. He cannot, by his declarations or admissions, affect or disparage the title of his vendee. Such testimony is clearly hearsay.

¶2The objection to the examination of M. D. Herring on the issues involved in the original suit, to which his testimony seems to have been limited by the court, was properly overruled. The witness was not a party to the original suit, and is not shown to have had any interest which would disqualify him from testifying in it. The appellant Thompson filed an answer in the nature of a cross bill, to which he made the witness, M. D. Herring, a party defendant. But by doing so he could not deprive the plaintiff in the original suit of Herring’s testimony upon the issues involved in it, and which could in no way affect the result of the cross bill against him. If the witness was permitted on his examination to extend his testimony beyond the bounds of its legitimate limits, it is no reason why he should have been altogether excluded from testifying. Exception should have been taken to such parts of his evidence as were improper.

¶3The exception to the depositions of the witnesses Drury and Orudup for want of service of the notice and copy of interrogatories was properly overruled. The fact of notice was sufficiently established to admit the deposition to be read as evidence to the jury. It is not deemed necessary in the present attitude of the *286case to consider any of the other questions that have been presented by the assignment of errors. The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.

¶4Reversed and remanded.

/27/tex/282 · .json · Public domain