Minnesota Supreme Court, 1879

Austin v. Robertson

Minnesota Supreme Court · Decided January 23, 1879 · Gilfillan

25 Minn. 431; 1879 Minn. LEXIS 20 (Minnesota Reports)

Counsel

F. W. Pearsall, for appellant., H. W. Brown, for respondent.

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Citation treatment has not been reviewed for this case. The notes below come from the citation graph and the Minnesota Revisor's amendment records, not from a review of how later courts treated this decision.

(as of 9/30/2026)

Last cited by a Minnesota appellate court in 1922, among the opinions in this site’s citation index.

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Cases that cite this one

11 later published cases cite this decision.

First National Bank v. Wiggins (Minn. 1922)
American Multigraph Sales Co. v. Grant (Minn. 1916)
Buck v. Buck (Minn. 1914)
Knatvold v. Wilkinson (Minn. 1901)
Nichols & Shepard Co. v. Wiedemann (Minn. 1898)
Scofield v. Walrath (Minn. 1886)
Conlan v. Grace (Minn. 1886)
Lucy v. Wilkins (Minn. 1885)
Norris v. Clark (Minn. 1885)
McAlpine v. Foley (Minn. 1885)
Follansbee v. Johnson (Minn. 1881)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

Gilfillan, C. J.

There was sufficient evidence to justify the verdict.

The action being against defendant, for talcing, as sheriff, plaintiff’s wheat, in the possession of his agent, A. A. Austin, upon an execution against J. A. Austin, the defendant offered to prove “what J. A. Austin said to him, while he was taking the wheat, in the presence of A. A. Austin, as to the pos*432session and control of the wheat.” Upon objection by plaintiff, no ground being stated, this was excluded.

.When a party makes an offer of testimony, the offer must-be sufficiently full to enable the court to see that the testimony offered is material. If it does not appear to be material, the court is not bound to receive it, even though the opposite party do not object. In other words, a trial court need not, even though the parties consent to it, spend its-time listening to testimony not affecting the controversy before-it. The testimony offered might or might not be material, depending on what it was that J. A. Austin said. What he-said the offer does not indicate, and it therefore fails to show the testimony material.

Order affirmed.

Case-law data current through September 30, 2026. Source: CourtListener bulk data.