Perpetuating Testimony

A proceeding, allowed under different regulations in various jurisdictions, for preserving the testimony of an aged or sickly person, or one likely to remove out of the jurisdiction, in cases where the controversy requiring such testimony cannot probably be tried in season to have the attendance of the witness. When a party in a suit in equity is desirous of preserving the evidence of witnesses concerning a matter which cannot be immediately investigated in a court of law, or when he is likely to be deprived of the evidence of material witnesses, by their death or departure from the realm, it is usual to file a bill in equity to perpetuate and preserve the testimony of such witnesses; and the court then usually empowers certain persons to examine such witnesses, and to take their depositions. The evidence so taken is then available on any future trial, if the witness or witnesses should in the mean time have died; but not otherwise.

Brown.