OATH IN LITE M. An oath which in the civil law was deferred to the complainant as to the value of the thing in dispute; on fail ure of other proof, particularly when there was a fraud on the part of the defendant and he suppressed proof in his possession. See Greenl. Ev.• § 348; 1 Eq. -Cas. Abr. 229; Herman v. Drinkwater, 1 Greenl. (Me.) 27; Sneider v. Geiss, 1 Yeates (Pa.) 34.
In general, the oath of the party cannot, by the common law, be received to establish his claim, but is admitted in two classes of cases: first, where it has been already prov ed that the party against whom it is offered has been guilty of some fraud or other tor tious or unwarrantable act of intermeddling with the complainant's goods, and no other evidence can be had of the amount of dam ages. See Smiley v. Dewey, 17 Ohio, 156; as, for example, where a trunk of goods was delivered to a shipmaster at one port to be carried to another, and on the passage he broke the trunk open and rifled it of its contents, in an action by the owners of the goods against the shipmaster, the facts above mentioned having been proved attunde, the plaintiff was held a competent witness to testify as to the contents of the trunk ; Her man v. Drinkwater, 1 Greenl. (Me.) 27. And
see Clark v. Spence, 10 Watts (Pa.) 335 ; I Greenl. Ev. § 348. Second, the oath in Went is also admitted on the ground of public policy where it is deemed essential to the purposes of justice; Tayloe v. Riggs, 1 Pet. (U. S.) 596, 7 L. Ed. 275; 6 Mood. 137. But this oath is admitted only on the ground of necessity. An example may be mentioned of a case where a statute can receive no exe cution unless the party interested be admit ted as a witness; U. S. v. Murphy, 16 Pet. (U. S.) 203, 10 L. Ed. 937. Parties in inter est are now everywhere, and in most cases, permitted to testify.