75 So. 377 | Miss. | 1917
delivered the opinion of the court.
The Lann & Carter Hardware Company is a corporation, and the defendant James Carberry was a planter. Suit was instituted in a justice of the peace court on an account for fertilizer sold by the appellant to
We think the court was in error on these rulings. Section 1917 of the Code of 1906 provides that a party is incompetent to testify to prove his claim against the estate of a decedent which accrued during "the lifetime of the decedent, or which had been transferred since his death. Mr. Lann was not the corporation. It is true he was a stockholder and the business manager of the corporation, and acted for it, but in this capacity he was only the agent of the corporation and not the corporation itself. The claim of the corporation was not his claim, though he might have had some incidental, collateral, or ultimate advantage In a recovery flowing from the testimony. It was decided in Mitchell v. Tishomingo Savings Institution, 56 Miss. 444, that the president of a corporation was a competent witness to testify against the -estate of the decedent under the statute. See, also, Wiggins Turpentine Co. v. Calamity Land Co., 109 Miss: 628, 68 So. 919; 12 Enc. Bv. pp. 787-794.
The judgment is therefore reversed, and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.