38 Kan. 408 | Kan. | 1888
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The notary public held the petitioner to be in contempt for refusing to give his deposition in a case pending in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Kansas, wherein the petitioner was plaintiff and the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Company was defendant, and for this refusal committed him to the custody of the sheriff,
The last ground of illegality alleged is all that we need to examine, and it is clearly sufficient to accomplish the discharge of the petitioner. There is an express admission by the railway company that it was not acting in good faith in the matter, and did not intend to offer in evidence the deposition proposed to be takeu, but that it was acting oppressively and for the purpose of fishing out the plaintiff’s evidence. This being conceded, the attempt to compel him to testify, and his imprisonment for refusing, is a clear abuse of judicial authority and process. The law permits depositions in a pending case to be taken upon certain conditions; but it proceeds upon the theory that the testimony when taken will be competent, and is intended in good faith to be read in evidence in the trial of the cause. Remoteness from the place of trial, which may make the personal attendance of the witness impracticable, and age and infirmity rendering the witness unable to travel and appear at court, are some of the conditions under which a party is permitted to take a deposition de bene esse. The right of taking the deposition of the petitioner is placed on the condition that he resides more than one hundred miles from the place of trial; and the claim is, that he is not excluded from so testifying by the fact that he was a plaintiff in the action. But assuming that a party may be compelled to give his deposition in a common-law action in the federal court, it certainly never can be taken unless there is a bona fide purpose to use the testimony if the statutory contingency on
The judgment of the district court will be reversed, and the cause remanded with the direction that the petitioner be discharged.