# Central Stock & Grain Exchange v. Board of Trade

> Illinois Supreme Court · April 16, 1902 · 196 Ill. 396

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6970290

## Case

- **Full name:** The Central Stock and Grain Exchange v. The Board of Trade of the City of Chicago
- **Court:** Illinois Supreme Court
- **Decided:** April 16, 1902
- **Citations:** 196 Ill. 396; 63 N.E. 740
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Boggs
- **Judges:** Boggs
- **Cited by:** 9 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6970290

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Boggs: I concur in the judgment of affirmance herein. I, however, doubt the soundness of the proposition that if the privilege given by law to decline to answer a question is availed of, a presumption having probative force as evidence arises that the answer would have been unfavorable. Mr. Greenleaf, in his work on Evidence, (vol. 1,15th ed. p. 600,) says: “If the witness declines to answer, no inference of the truth of the fact is permitted to be drawn from that circumstance.” In notes 10 and / to the text a number of authorities are cited in support of the conclusion announced by the learned author.
There is authority for the view that if a party to a civil action voluntarily becomes a witness in his own behalf and in the course of his examination claims his privilege to refuse to answer a material and, aside from the privilege, a competent question, the circumstance may be considered and given the like effect as a refusal to produce the evidence which it is in his power to produce. (Andrews v. Fry, 104 Mass. 234 .) But I think the weight of authority is against the position that an adverse party may be called to take the stand as a witness in behalf of his adversary, and his declination to answer a question which he has a legal right to refuse to answer be seized upon as proof of the truth of a supposed fact which it might be implied an answer to the question would disclose.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6970290. Public record. Not legal advice.