Bank of Union v. Stack

Allen, J. The relevancy of evidence is frequently difficult to determine, because men’s minds are so constituted that a circumstance which impresses one as having an important bearing on a controverted issue, appears to another to have no probative force. All the authorities are agreed that if the evidence is merely conjectural or is remote, or has no tendency except to excite prejudice, it should be rejected, because the reception of such evidence would unduly prolong the trial of causes, and would probably confuse and mislead the jury, but it is not required that the evidence bear directly on the question in issue, and it is competent and relevant if it is one of the circumstances surrounding the parties, and necessary to be known to properly understand their conduct or motives, or to weigh the reasonableness of their contentions. *517 Greenleaf says (1 Green. Ev., see. 51a) : - “It is not necessary that tbe evidence should bear directly on the issue. It is admissible if it tends to prove the issue or constitutes a link in the chain of proof, although alone it might not justify a verdict in accordance with it.” Taylor (1 Tay. Ev., sec. 316) : ‘“While he (the judge) shall reject, as too remote, every fact which merely furnishes a forceful analogy or conjectural inference, he may admit as relevant the evidence of all those matters which shed a real, though perhaps an indirect and feeble light on the question in issue. “The circumstances of the parties to the suit, and the position in which they stood when the matter in controversy occurred, are generally proper subjects of evidence; and, indeed, the change in the law enabling parties to give testimony for themselves has rendered this proof of surrounding circumstances still more important than it was in former times.” Jones (1 Jones Ev., sec. 138): “It has been demonstrated that testimony, obviously collateral to the issues, which would merely tend to prejudice the jury, must be rejected; but where there is such logical connection between the fact offered as evidence and the issuable fact, that proof of the former tends to make the latter more probable or improbable, the testimony proposed is relevant, if not too remote. ‘The competency of a collateral fact to be used as the basis of legitimate argument is not to be determined by the conclusiveness of the inferences it may afford in reference to the litigated fact. It is enough if these may tend, even in a slight degree, to elucidate the inquiry or to assist, though remotely, to a determination probably founded on truth.’ Where there is a conflict of testimony of witnesses, evidence is admissible of collateral facts, which have a direct tendency to show that the testimony of one set of witnesses is more probable than that of the other.” Applying this principle, we are of opinion that the evidence of the insolvency of McManus was compétent and relevant. The question in issue was whether the note in suit was delivered to the plaintiff bank with or without conditions. The president of the bank testified that there were no conditions; that the delivery was absolute, and that according to the agreement between the parties he used a part of the proceeds of the note to pay a note which McManus owed the bank, and canceled and surrendered the McManus note. In the absence of other evidence, the McManus note, on which the bank had loaned money, would be accepted as solvent paper; and the fact that the bank had surrendered a valuable asset at the time of the transaction would be a circumstance tending to corroborate the evidence of its president. *518 It might well be argued, and with much force, that the evidence of the president must be true, and the delivery unconditional, as otherwise he would not, at the time when the transaction was fresh in mind, have surrendered a solvent paper, which he would not have had the right to do if' the note in suit had been delivered, conditionally, and to meet this view it was competent to prove that the makers of the note surrendered were insolvent, and that the bank parted with nothing of value. It follows, therefore, as the evidence of insolvency was properly admitted, that the ruling of his Honor, setting aside the verdict as matter of law because of its admission, was erroneous. Let the order vacating the verdict be set aside, and let judgment be entered on the verdict for the defendant, and when so entered the plaintiff will have the right of appeal, if so advised, and to present its exceptions taken on the trial. Reversed.