Document Type
Response or Comment
Publication Date
1-1920
Abstract
The evidential force of presumptions under the California Civil Code, I96I, was considered and the statute construed in Everett v. Stazdard Accident Insurance Co., - Cal. - , 187 Pac. 996. The defense to an action on an insurance policy, by one claiming to be the wife of the insured, was that she did not have that relationship because the marriage ceremony under which she claimed occurred while the insured had another wife then living. The question arose as to the effect upon the determination of this question of fact of the presumption that the deceased did not commit a crime in consummating the second marriage. The code provision is as follows: "A presumption (unless declared by law to be conclusive) may be controverted by other evidence, direct or indirect, but unless so controverted the jury are bound to find according to the presumption." The code defines a presumption as, "A deduction which the law expressly directs to be made from particular facts." It is to be noted that these two provisions were really intended as but statutory declarations of the general rule of law then existing.
Recommended Citation
Lane, Victor H. "Evidence - Disputable Presumptions; Can They Be Weighed?" Mich. L. Rev. 18 (1920): 780-1.