Wilson v. Boerum

The same principles which make dying declarations evidence in criminal cases, make them a fortiori evidence in civil cases. They are to be received with great caution, and ought to be disregarded by a jury, if unsupported by circumstances testified to in the cause. There is no case in our own books, in which this point is decided. I have had occasion to consider it in an important case, in another county, and am decidedly in favor of the admissibility of the evidence. There are two cases in the English books, in which such declarations were received in civil cases.

*240The defendant then proved that Brown died of a consumption, and that, when all hopes of recovery were at an end, and after he considered himself a dying man, he told his wife, in a private conversation, that the note in controversy had been drawn and indorsed for the purpose of getting it discounted for Schieffelin, the maker; that it was delivered to the plaintiff for that purpose; that he never paid any value for it; and, instead of applying it to the purpose for which it was made, he had converted it to his own use, by pledging it for a debt. Vide Woodhull v. Holmes, 10 John. 231.

Verdict for defendant.(1)