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49 Mich. 4

Hewett v. Chapman

Michigan Supreme Court

Decided June 21, 1882

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1882-06-21

<p>Jurors as witnesses — Proof of former testimony — Verdict.</p> <p>Jurors are competent witnesses to prove wliat testimony lias been given? upon a trial in wbicli they have served. But they cannot be examined as to the elements of their verdict nor as to the deliberations by which it was reached; the verdict itself is the best evidence of the result of their deliberations.</p>

Relies on Merchants' Bank of Canada v. Schulenburg

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Beversed · Decided 1882-06-21

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently December 1921

3 state decisions

1018821890190019101920decided

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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Marston, J.

¶1This was an action of trover commenced in justice’s court, where the plaintiff recovered judgment,, which on certiorari to the circuit was reversed.

¶2The plaintiff’s claim was for a quantity of wood, cut from trees purchased from defendants and paid for in work and labor performed for them, and the defendants’ position was-that the plaintiff had brought an action of assumpsit for such work and labor and recovered a judgment in that action, and that therefore the trees and wood cut therefrom was not the property of the plaintiff.

¶3In the present casé the plaintiff, by calling as witnesses-some of the jurors in the former case, sought to prove that the defendants in the assumpsit case gave testimony tending to show and recognizing .plaintiff’s title to the trees and wood cut therefrom. This was admissible. Schulenberg v. Merchants’ Bank of Canada, 48 Mich. 102.

¶4The defendants sought to show by the jurors in the assumpsit case, that in making or arriving at their verdict, they allowed the plaintiff for the full amount of labor claimed by him. This clearly was incompetent and properly rejected *5by the justice. A juror may be called, like any.other witness, to prove any fact pertaining to what took place in open court on the trial of a cause. To this • extent he stands as would a third person or stranger to the cause, and if the facts sought to be proven could be shown by third parties present, they may be by the jurors. When however the jury retire to deliberate upon their verdict to be given, their conversations and discussions, — their deliberations,— cannot be inquired into. The result of their deliberations is the only material fact; it is the one fact upon which the jury agreed, and that can best be shown by their verdict.

¶5We are of opinion that the rulings of the justice were correct, and that the judgment of the circuit court must be reversed with costs of this court and of the circuit.

The other Justices concurred.
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