WILL CASE APPEALS.
Mr. McLean's will case appeals bill [H. R. 163] coming up, with Judiciary Committee's favorable recommendation -
Mr. MILLER moved that it be indefinitely postponed.
Mr. DAGGY explained the necessity for the bill. It was to repeal the repealing act of last winter and reinstate cases pending in the Courts of Common Pleas which were prevented by that act from appealing to the Circuit Court.
Mr. CRAIN defended the repeal act of last winter, and opposed its repeal. He said it was designed to affect a particular ease wherein there was a will to give property to the wife to the exclusion of children.
Mr. WOODS believed there was merit in the bill. He stated that the law prior to the act of 1865 authorized will cases to be appealed from the Common Pleas to the Circuit Court; and the case in the Circuit Court could be put into shape for appeal to the Supreme Court. In this case referred to parties had neglected to place the record in the Common Pleas in shape for appeal to the Supreme Court, and before they could come into the Circuit Court, the act of 1855 cut off appeals from the Common Pleas to the Circuit Court. It seemed to the Judiciary Committee to be a trick of legislation to interfere with this particular case. Without discussing the abstract principle, the committee thought it best just to place these parties back where they were.
Mr. O'NEIL opposed the principle of appealing these will cases from the Common Pleas to the Circuit Court It favored litigation, which ought rather to be discouraged. He rehearsed the merits of the Terre Haute case, involved in this legislation. He understood that the evidence full and complete in that case. And this bill was to admit a new trial in a case which has been justly adjudicated. It was an attempt to revive the right of appeal to the Circuit Court, to give the advantage a of new trial to the supporters of an iniquitous will, now when a material witness for the contestants is no more.
Mr. CAMPBELL supposed, from the facts elicited, that almost every man here was prepared to support the bill. It was immaterial what the witness testified, or whether the witness were living or dead. He doubled not but that if the defeated party had succeeded in the particular case referred to, that party would have been here asking for this repeal, just as it is now asked for by the opposite party.
Mr. WILSON stated his opinion, and his reasons for it, that the bill should be indefinitely postponed.
Mr. ROSS saw no greater impropriety in allowing this case to be tried in the Circuit Court de novo, than in allowing any other will case to be so appealed and tried. If there was justice in allowing these will cases to be tried de novo more than any other cases, he was unable to see it. The law had better stand as it is.
Mr. SPENCER. It seemed to him that if this particular Terre Haute case did not involve a large amount of money, this bill would not have come in.
Mr. McLEAN said the Legislature should not legislate to impair vested rights. That was the character of the legislation proposed to be repealed by this bill. Gentlemen have no right to say that this bill is got upto meet a particular case. He argued generally, that these parties in the Terre Haute case could not have anticipated the action of the Legislature of 1865. This case ought to stand on the same ground with other similar cases. If the act of 1865 had contained a saving clause, this bill never would have been introduced.
Mr. MILLER insisted that this bill did not stand on its merits, but on the merits of isolated cases. It would open two cases to renewed litigation, now adjudicated and settled in his county, and there were others that would be in like manner disturbed.
Mr. DAGGY said this was a question of legal right and wrong. He insisted that legal principles were all developed by single cases. Were gentlemen prepared to cut off all appeals from the Common Pleas to the Circuit Court? He recited facts in the particular case referred to. He also rehearsed the legal right to appeal the case, page: 203[View Page 203] alleging the testimony of the deceased witness could be recovered.
Mr. LITSON, as hearing the case disinterestedly, held that the bill ought to be not merely postponed, but killed outright. It was simply a case bill.
The motion to indefinitely postpone was agreed to. Subsequently-
On motion by Mr. DUNN, the vote was reconsidered, and the bill was laid on the table.
Mr. MILLER asked and obtained leave to withdraw his report made this morning returning Mr. Peelle's innkeepers' bill [H. R. 111]-the vote being reconsidered by which the committee's report to postpone was concurred in.
The House then (under the rule,) adjourned till to-morrow morning 9 o'clock.
