2 Tex. 428 | Tex. | 1847
delivered the opinion of the court.
The appellant instituted his suit against McNeill to recover a negro slave or his value in the possession of the defendant. McNeill answered that 'the slave was not the property of the plaintiff, but that he belonged to Boyce, from whom he had hired him. And he prays that the said Boyce be cited and made a party defendant. There next appears the petition of Boyce to be made a party defendant, on which there does not appear to have been any direct action of the court. But Boyce answers the petition of Legg, and from that time appears throughout the record as a codefendant with the other defendant, McNeill.
There was a good deal of testimony before the jury, and a verdict for the defendants and judgment thereon, from which the plaintiff appealed. The whole testimony seems to be embodied in the statement of facts sent up; but from the confusion in the record, it is really difficult to understand what is presented. It, however, appears to us that the most material points for our consideration are the following:
1st. "Was there error in permitting Boyce to become a joint defendant?
2d. "Was there error in permitting the testimony of McNeill, one of the defendants, to go to the jury?
3d. Is the verdict contrary to the evidence?
The first presents á question that has never been well settled in our practice. The bringing in a new party defendant in
In the state of Louisiana, like it is with us, they have no separate chancery jurisdiction, and their practice is consequently adapted to the exercise of jurisdiction over all rights, whether originating in principles of law or equity. The inquiry' there is never whether the party is in pursuit of a remedy that belongs to the exclusive jurisdiction of one or the other. Having no such distinction, the only -inquiry is, whether he has a right of which the court can take cognizance, and it is wholly immaterial whether it is founded in law or equity. Hence it is that in the courts of that stats nothing is more common than the intervention of a new party as warrantor or interven or. The rights of warrantors and in-tervenors to be made parties to a suit after it had been commenced, is expressly recognized in Louisiana both by the civil code and the code of practice. But independent of the express provisions regulating the introduction of such new parties into a suit, it is believed that the right to admit them would be the necessary result of their system. "Without such right the interest of parties not originally embraced in the suit would, if true, be most seriously affected. We have no express statute regulating the rights of -intervenors and warrantors, except in suits for land. If, therefore, such parties can be made, we must derive the authority from our peculiar system of jurisprudence. By our constitution, jurisdiction is conferred without distinction between equity and law; consequently, whenever we are called on to grant a remedy for enforcing a right, if the party is entitled to it on the princi pies of equity or law, we are bound to grant it. We have before adverted to the practice of courts of chancery in making parties; and we believe that it cannot be questioned that in chancery every one whose interest can be directly affected by the decree to be made can
There was no error, then, in permitting Boyce to become a co-defendant with McNeill.
On the second point, the admissibility of the evidence of McNeill, there can be no doubt both the defendants were incompetent to give evidence on the ground of interest. There
The third and last point we have proposed to discuss is, whether the verdict of the jury was contrary'to evidence.
On looking into the statement of facts, it will be found that the plaintiff’s case mainly depends on one witness, and his ci’edibility was attempted directly to be impeached. How far the attempt was successful depended on the conviction of the jury under the rules of evidence that were or would have been given by the court, if asked to do so. If this witness was discredited, the preponderance of the evidence was with the defendants. But, supposing this witness not to be discredited, then the evidence was contradictory, and a clear case for the determination of the jury, and the verdict ought not to be disturbed.
The judgment must be affirmed.