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59 Cal. 540

Pierce v. Schaden

California Supreme Court

Decided November 15, 1881

California Supreme Court · decided 1881-11-15

Appeal by defendant Sckaden from a judgment for the plaintiff, and from an order denying a new trial in the Superior Court of the County of Sacramento. Denson, J.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1881-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently September 1943

7 state decisions

301881189019001910192019301940decided

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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The Court:

¶1The question put to the witness Schaden on cross-examination as to his conversation with Gardner, respecting the execution of a mortgage to secure the payment of the money due, related to a matter collateral to the issue before the Court, and, if permissible at all, the party was hound by the answer of the witness, and it could not he used as a foundation for impeachment. “ It is a well-settled rule, that a witness can not be cross-examined as to any fact which is collateral and irrelevant to the issue, merely for the purpose of contradicting him by other evidence, if he should deny it, thereby to discredit his testimony.” (1 Greenl. Ev., § 449.)

¶2Judgment and order reversed, and cause remanded for a jnew trial.

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