David Josiah Brewer

“ It would be an anomaly if a party feeling himself aggrieved by the rulings of a trial court could appeal to the supreme court of his territory, and invoke its judgment on certain alleged errors, and when defeated there could transfer the judgment of that territorial supreme court to this, and ask a reversal here of its judgment on grounds involving mere matters of procedure in the prior trial, to which its attention was not directed. It is fundamental that when the judgment of a court is challenged in error its rulings alone are open to consideration. ”

“ Here, as elsewhere, we are driven to ask the opinions of those having superior knowledge in respect thereto. It is not questioned by the counsel for plaintiff in error that the general rule is that value may be proved by the opinion of any witness who possesses sufficient knowledge on the subject; but their contention is that the witnesses permitted to testify had no such sufficient knowledge. It is difficult to lay down any exact rule in respect to the amount of knowledge a witness must possess, and the determination of this matter rests largely in the discretion of the trial judge. ”

“ There remains for consideration but a single point,-that there was admitted in evidence on the trial the opinions of witnesses as to the value of the land, which were not based upon the sale of the same or similar property, and were not therefore the opinions of persons competent to so testify. It appears that the land taken was a strip running through a mining claim, which had been patented and belonged to the defendants in error. The claim adjoined the Anaconda mining claim, which had been developed and worked, and demonstrated to contain a vein of great value. ”