196 Ill. 396 | Ill. | 1902
Lead Opinion
The foregoing opinion of the Appellate Court, from which we have omitted details of the evidence, meets with our full approval, as making a just and proper disposition of the case on the record, and it will be adopted as the opinion of the court. It clearly appears that the quotations of market prices which appellant sought by its bill to compel appellees to continue to furnish, were used, and were obtained for the purpose of being used, in conducting a business in violation of law as well as of its contract with the telegraph company. Appellant was not entitled to any relief of that character. In this respect the case differs materially from New York and Chicago Grain Exchange v. Board of Trade, 127 Ill. 153.
The judgment of the Appellate Court will be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
Concurrence Opinion
I concur in the judgment of affirmance herein. I, however, doubt the soundness of the proposition that if the privilege given by law to decline to answer a question is availed of, a presumption having probative force as evidence arises that the answer would have been unfavorable. Mr. Greenleaf, in his work on Evidence, (vol. 1,15th ed. p. 600,) says: “If the witness declines to answer, no inference of the truth of the fact is permitted to be drawn from that circumstance.” In notes 10 and / to the text a number of authorities are cited in support of the conclusion announced by the learned author.
There is authority for the view that if a party to a civil action voluntarily becomes a witness in his own behalf and in the course of his examination claims his privilege to refuse to answer a material and, aside from the privilege, a competent question, the circumstance may be considered and given the like effect as a refusal to produce the evidence which it is in his power to produce. (Andrews v. Fry, 104 Mass. 234.) But I think the weight of authority is against the position that an adverse party may be called to take the stand as a witness in behalf of his adversary, and his declination to answer a question which he has a legal right to refuse to answer be seized upon as proof of the truth of a supposed fact which it might be implied an answer to the question would disclose.
