¶1[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *268 It is enough to say that the refusal at circuit to permit the witness on his cross-examination to testify whether he believed any of the statements made by the defendant about the plaintiff's daughter was harmless, inasmuch as the witness during the same cross-examination testified that he did not believe she was poisoned. The offer to prove by the same witness during that cross-examination that the plaintiff's reputation was not affected by these statements was properly rejected for two reasons, viz.: The evidence, if admissible, was a part of a substantial defence to a cause of action already established, which the court had the right to exclude until after the plaintiff had rested his case. It was not an offer to show that the plaintiff was not injured by reason of any defect in his own reputation, nor was any error committed in admitting evidence of the words spoken in 1861 and 1863. Each, if actionable, was outlawed, and admissible upon the question of malice, and hence the order denying a new trial must be affirmed.
44 N.Y. 266
Titus v. . Sumner
Decided December 29, 1870
New York Court of Appeals · decided 1870-12-29
This is an action to recover damages for charging the plaintiff, in May, 1864, with poisoning his own daughter to death; and in August of the same year with being a robber, a murderer and a thief. The defendant interposed a general denial. The action was tried at the Delaware circuit in February, 1866.
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1870-12-29
How this case has been cited
Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently February 1965
9 state decisions
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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