American Merchants' Union Express Co. v. Gilbert

Citations

• 57 Ill. 468

Syllabus

<p>1. Evidence—competency—motion to exclude. A party to whom a package, purporting to contain money, had been sent by express, upon calling for it at the place of destination, found it open and containing nothing hut pieces of paper of no value. In a suit against the company to recover for the alleged loss, the agent who gave the package to the plaintiff, gave his testimony by deposition, and among the interrogatories in the commission, was this: “State what occurred, fully and in detail, at the time the jilaintiff called for the package ?” The witness stated, in his answer, a conversation between himself and an assistant superintendent of the company, had out of the presence of the plaintiff, in which the witness spoke unfavorably of the claim of the plaintiff, and also suggested that the package had been opened by his predecessor in the office. On motion of the defendant to exclude from the jury all such portions of the answer as were irrelevant and improper, the court should have excluded all of the private conversation between the two agents of the company, as well that portion unfavorable to the plaintiff, as that adverse to the interests of the defendant, all that part of the answer being incompetent.</p> <p>2. This private conversation between the agents was not responsive to the question, and though it was given under the interrogatory of the defendant, it was not chargeable to any agency of its own, and therefore the defendant was not precluded from askingits exclusion.</p>