Opinion
(January Term, 1816.)
Parol evidence cannot be received to contradict the records of the county court, confirming the report of a jury laying out a road.
THIS was an action to recover the penalty given by act of Assembly for turning public roads; and on the trial the plaintiff proved by the records of the county court that an order issued in 1799 for a jury to lay off a road from the Fishdam ford on the south fork of the Catawba to the road leading from Lincolnton to the Island Ford; that they returned, "they had laid off a road from the South fork, crossing Clerk's Creek at the old bridge place, to the road leading from Lincolnton to the Island Ford"; and that an order issued to an overseer to open said road. The plaintiff then proved that the road was shortly after opened, and had been worked on by the overseers for about fourteen years as the public road, as at first cut out, until the defendant turned it from that place and continued it turned for six months. The defendant then offered to prove by some of the jurors who laid off the road that the road cut by the overseer and continued differed from their report in this: that it crossed the creek 80 poles above the old bridge place called for in their report, and that the defendant, whilst overseer, turned the road from where it had been cut out, to the old bridge place; and that the road, as cut out at first, was complained of by some persons through whose land it passed, as not being the road laid out by the jury. The evidence of the defendant was rejected by the court. The plaintiff further proved that the road first cut out was equally good and nearer than the road crossing at the old bridge place, as turned by defendant.
If the evidence offered by defendant was improperly rejected by the court, then a new trial to be granted; if properly rejected, judgment for plaintiff.
No principle of law in relation to evidence is better settled than that parol testimony in contradiction of matters of (324) record is inadmissible. The testimony offered by defendant was in contradiction of the records of the county court of Lincoln, confirming the report of the jury and the road laid out by them. Such testimony was properly rejected by the presiding judge.
Motion for new trial overruled.
Judgment for plaintiff.