Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

4 Cal. 105

Parker v. Smith

California Supreme Court

Decided January 15, 1854

California Supreme Court · decided 1854-01-15

The facts of this ease, and the questions of law involved, sufficiently appear in the opinion of the Court. The testimony having been received by the plaintiff without objection at the time, it was too late to make the objection afterwards. (1 Denio, 518; State v. Bodin, 4 Cow. 855.) Objection was made after the cross-examination; the objection did not come too late. (1 Greenleaf Ev. § 421, ei seq.; 1 Stark. Ev. 124; 2 Camp. 14; 2 Swan, 400; 1 Phil. Ev. p. 13.)

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1854-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently March 1939

11 state decisions

30185418601870188018901900191019201930decided

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 →

Mr. Ch. J. Murray

¶1delivered the opinion of the Court.

Mr. J. Heydeneeldt concurred.

¶2On the trial of this cause, one of the witnesses deposed to a state of facts which, upon his cross-examination, proved to be hearsay evidence, and wholly inadmissible; whereupon the Court ordered the testimony of the witness to be stricken out and instructed the jury to disregard it.

¶3The appellant assigns this as error; first, because the testimony was not objected to, in limine, by the respondent; and, second, because the Court, of its own motion, ruled it ■out.

¶4The objection is not well taken. The respondent could not know the witness’ means of information, until he was subjected to a cross-examination, and ought not to be required to except * to testimony before it [106] appeared that such testimony was objectionable.

¶5The right of the Court to interfere is also undoubted. The testimony was clearly improper. The duty of the Court is not confined to passing upon such portions of testimony as may be excepted to, but extends to the preservation oí the rights of litigants, and a proper disposition of the matters in controversy.

¶6Judgment affirmed.

/4/cal/105 · .json · Public domain