Columbus Co. v. Dayton Co.

Where a mining company sues for damages for trespasses committed on their claims during March, April and May, a person who owned an interest in the claims during January, February and March, but had sold out to the company on, the first of April, is not a competent witness for the plaintiffs—even though, when offered, the witness executes an assignment to plaintiffs of his » interest in the damages.

Plaintiffs own mining claims called the “ Columbus Claims.” Defendants own claims called the “ Dayton Claims,” on the west of plaintiffs’ claims. The boundary line between the claims is the point of dispute, Plaintiffs aver that defendants are working ground over the line and on plaintiffs’ claims, and bring trespass. Defendants deny—the pleadings being verified—that they are working on plaintiffs’ ground, and claim to own it; they also set up that they are owners of certain claims, known as the “ Eureka Claims,” lying on the east of the Dayton claims. Defendants, on the trial, offered to show that at the time of the alleged trespasses the “ Eureka Company ” owned the ground said to have been trespassed on, and that' defendants had purchased it from the “ Eureka Company ” before this suit: Held, that defendants were entitled to prove their title from the “Eureka Company”—plaintiffs objecting for irrelevancy, and that the title had not been pleaded.