Shoemaker v. Powers

Citations

• 78 Fla. 20
• 82 So. 751

Syllabus

<p>1. The purpose of the statute enacted in 1854, adopted from the Civil Code of New York, and brought forward as Section 1505 General Statutes of Florida, was to enlarge, not to restrict, the competency ,of parties as witnesses.</p> <p>2. The expression “interest in the event,” as used in the proviso to this statute, w,as never intended to enlarged the class to be excluded under it beyond that which the common law excluded in using the same language. Under the stringent rules of the common law all persons who were interested in the event of a suit were disqualified from testifying therein, whether their antagonists in interest were living or dead. The purpose of this statute was. to remove this common-law disability arising from interest in the event of litigation, except in qases where one of the parties to any “transaction or communication” was, at the time of the examination, dead or insane. In the latter cases the disabilities arising from interest in the event that were imposed by the common law are, by this statute, retained. But in such cases the statute disqualifies those only who were disqualified by the general rule of the common law. Any exception from the disqualification that was recognized by the rules of common law, forms a like exception to the cases intended to be excluded by the proviso to this statute. If the witness was competent by the common law, he is competent also under the proviso to this statute, and vice versa.</p> <p>3. The true test of the interest of a witness under the proviso to . this statute is whether he will either gain or lose by the direct legal 'operation and effect of the judgment, or whether the record in the case will he legal evidence, for or against him, in some other action. It must he a present, certain and vested interest, and not an interest uncertain, remote or contingent.</p>