68 Cal. 200 | Cal. | 1885
— On the trial of this cause in the court below one Knight was examined as a witness in rebuttal, and gave testimony material for the plaintiff; on cross-examination he was asked in effect if he had not, at a certain time and place, proposed to the defendant to procure testimony for him in the case upon the payment by defendant of $250. Knight having answered in the negative, the defendant was called in his own behalf in surrebuttal, for the purpose of showing that such a proposal had been made by Knight, and of thus impeaching his testimony. To this plaintiff objected, upon the ground that as the transaction for the purchase of testimony was a matter purely collateral to the issues in the case, and was brought out by defendant on cross-examination, he was concluded by the answers given. The objection was sustained, and the ruling of the court in that regard constitutes the ground of the appeal.
The ruling was erroneous. The case comes within the exceptions to the rule that if a question is put to a witness which is collateral or irrelevant to the issue, his answer cannot be contradicted by the party who asked the question, but is conclusive against him. It does not admit of doubt that if Knight did in fact offer to procure testimony for defendant in the case for a money.consideration, it was a corrupt proposal, and would tend to impeach the testimony that he himself had given. “The
The record shows that the attention of the witness Knight was sufficiently called to the subject, and his denial sufficiently explicit to allow the contradictory evidence offered by defendant.
McKee, J., and McKinstry, concurred.
Hearing in Bank denied.