Opinion
(September, 1797.)
An answer may be taken out of the State, under a commission, before any person authorized by law to administer an oath at the place where taken, and will be received, though the commission was issued in blank, and afterwards filled up by the defendant with the name of the commissioner.
BILL IN EQUITY for an injunction to stay the defendant from proceeding at law. A commission had issued to Maryland to take the answer of the defendant, the reading of which was now opposed by Mr. Martin, because the commission for taking the answer had issued with a blank for the name of the commissioner, and had been filled up by the defendant or his counsel after it went from the office of the clerk and master. He contended that the commissioner should have been named, and approved of by the court before the commission issued. And he cited the case of __________ v. Mooring, in this Court, where the answer was referred for impertinence and the Court declared that no commission ought to issue for the future to a commissioner not previously approved of by the Court.
Badger, e contra, cited several cases in this Court, as also did Taylor and others, where the answer had been taken by commission filled up as in the present case and had been received by the Court.
The practice of taking an answer upon a commission filled up by the defendant with the name of a commissioner is a dangerous one; as the defendant may name a man who will certify an answer as sworn to, when in truth it was not. Such abuses have been committed with respect to commissioners to take testimony. But as this answer was taken before the Chief Justice of one of the districts of Maryland, and as the practice has been to receive answers taken before persons authorized by the laws of the country where taken to administer oaths, it is better to adhere to that practice than now to alter it.
Let the answer be read.
NOTE. — See Hunt v. Williams, 1 N.C. 318; Allen v. State Bank, 21 N.C. 7.