
    No. 582
    WICKER v. KENNEY
    Ohio Appeals, 1st Dist., Hamilton County
    No. 2322.
    Decided Jan. 7, 1924
    480. EVIDENCE — Admission by defendant of his ownership of the automobile inflicting an injury held admissible.
   This action was began in the Hamilton Common Pleas, to recover damages; for personal injury. The petition charged that Wicker owned and operated an automobile, and that his negligence caused the accident and injury. The answer denied the ownership; that the accident happened; and that he was negligent. The issues made by the pleadings were: Did he own the automobile? And, was he guilty of negligence? The court permitted Kenney to testify that Wicker called upon her and said he was the man that hit the little girl, and made the remark that he didn’t care, that he claimed insurance.

Attorneys ■ — • Jackson & Woodward, for Wicker; Crossley & Rogers, for Kenney; all of Cincinnati.

Wicker made a motion for an instructed verdict, because of the lack of evidence of his ownership of the automobile. The court overruled the motion, and a verdict was returned against Wicker, who prosecuted error in this case to reverse the judgment. The court of Appeals held it to be the general rule of evidence that declarations of a party to an action against interest may be offered in evidence, and this is truej even though the statement contains some element that otherwise would not be admissible in evidence; and that the statement made to Kenney by Wicker was competent evidence. In the case of Goz v. Fenner, 104 OS. 500, defendant denied the ownership of the automobile and that it was being' operated in the usual course of his business at the time of the happening of the accident. The court therein held that plaintiff could call witnesses to testify to a statement made by defendant to an insurance company to prove the allegations made by the pleadings. .

From the record in this case and an examination of the Goz case, the Court of Appeals concluded that the facts in this case bring it within the rule above stated, and that che judgment should be affirmed.  