International & Great Northern Railway Co. v. Ragsdale

Citations

• 67 Tex. 24
• 2 S.W. 515
• 1886 Tex. LEXIS 608

Syllabus

<p>1. Diligence—Application for Continuance.—The refusal of the district court to continue a cause on account of the failure to procure the testimony of a witness will not constitute error for which the judgment rendered will be reversed, unless facts be set forth in the application for continuance distinctly and with certainty showing that due diligence to secure the testimony was used. See statement in the opinion illustrating this rule.</p> <p>2. Agency.—Agency may be established by showing that the principal had 1 habitually ratified the acts of the alleged agent in similar transactions.</p> <p>3. Declaratives—Agency.—The rule is well established that the declaratives of an agent are only admissible as to matters within the scope of his authority; and only as the transactions then going on, and not as to past events.</p> <p>4. Evidence—Compromise.—The rule which excludes an offer to compromise a contemplated suit, when made under an express or implied agreement that the conversation shall be without prejudice, is founded in the policy that to admit it in evidence would tend to discourage the settlement of litigation. If the proposition be to pay a sum to buy peace, and it has not been accepted and become a contract, it will be deemed to have been made without prejudice, and is not admissible in evidence; following Home Insurance Company v. Baltimore Warehouse Company, 83 United States, 627—which case is reviewed.</p> <p>5. Eight of Action—Damage.—The doctrine that proof of possession of land is alone sufficient to entitle the occupant to maintain an action of trespass against a wrong doer, is founded on the fact that possession is prima facie evidence of title. But if the title be in another, the right of the possessor to recover is limited to the amount of damage to the possessory interest; if the damage be beyond this, and to the freehold, the possessor or tenant at sufferance can not maintain an action for its recovery.</p>