Keating v. Nolan

Citations

• 51 Pa. Super. 320
• 1912 Pa. Super. LEXIS 220

Syllabus

<p>Evidence — Witness—Competency of witness — Party dead, — Proof of death — Act of May 28,1887, clause (e) sec. 5, P. L. 158.</p> <p>1. An interested person is competent to testify to a fact or condition of facts existing after the death of a deceased party in interest, notwithstanding such testimony may inferentially tend to show that the same state of facts existed, or that some other connected fact existed or occurred, prior to the decedent’s death.</p> <p>2. In an action of ejectment where the plaintiff claims an interest in the land in controversy as a daughter of her mother by the latter’s first marriage, and offers proof that a deed to the land had been made .to her mother in 1873, and that her mother died in 1874, and the defendants who are children by the mother’s second marriage, claimed that no deed was ever made to their mother, and assert title through their own father, one of the defendants may testify that the mother died in 1871.</p> <p>3. To testify as to the date of the death of a party, is not to testify to any matter occurring before the death, and, therefore, is not within the letter of the exception to the general rule of competency.</p> <p>4. Since the passage of the Act of May 23, 1887, P. L. 158, competency is the rule, and incompetency is the exception.</p>