Table of Contents

SECTION III – OF PRESUMPTIONS

Art. 250. Presumptions are consequences which the law or the magistrate, draws from a known fact to a fact unknown.

  

§ 1 – OF PRESUMPTIONS ESTABLISHED BY LAW

Art. 251. Legal presumption is that which is attached by a special law to certain acts, or to certain facts, such are,
1st. Acts which the law declares null, as presumed to have been made to elude its provisions, from their very quality;
2dly. Cases in which the law declares that the property or discharge results from certain determinate circumstances.
3dly. The authority which the law attributes to the thing judged;
4thly. The weight which the law attaches to the confession of the party, or to his oath.

Art. 252. The authority of the thing judged takes place only with regard to what has formed the object of the judgement. The thing demanded must be the same; the demand must be founded on the same cause; the demand be between the same parties, and formed by them against them in the same quality.

Art. [2]153. Legal proof dispenses with all other proof in favor of him for whom it exists.
No proof is admitted against the presumption of law, when, on the strength of that presumption, it annuls certain acts, or refuses a judicial action, unless it has reserved the contrary proof, and saving what will be said on the judicial oath and confession.

 

§ 2 – OF PRESUMPTION NOT ESTABLISHED BY LAW

Art. 254. Presumptions not established by law are left to the judgement and discretion of the judge, who ought to admit none but weighty, precise and consistent presumptions, and only in cases where the law admits testimonial proof, unless the act be attacked on account of fraud or deceit.

 

SECTION IV – OF THE CONFESSION OF THE PARTY

Art. 255. The avowal which is opposed to a party is either extra-judicial or judicial.

Art. 256. The allegation of an extra-judicial avowal merely verbal, is useless in all cases of a demand in support of which testimonial proof would be inadmissible.

Art. 257. The judicial avowal is the declaration which the party, or his special attorney in fact, makes in a judicial proceeding.
It amounts to full proof against him who has made it.
It cannot be divided against him. It cannot be revoked, unless it be proved to have been made through an error in fact.  It cannot be revoked on a pretext of an error in right.

 

SECTION V – OF THE PROOF BY OATH

Art. 258. There shall no longer be any other manner of making proof of a fact by the oath either of the plaintiff or defendant, but by what is called the interrogatory on facts and articles (discovery).

Art. 259. The interrogatory on facts and articles consists in certain questions proposed in writing and by articles, on which one of the parties to the suit requires that his opposite party be held to answer on oath, for the purpose of endeavoring to obtain from the avowal that he may make, some proof respecting the object in litigation.
The form of these interrogatories, and the rules that are to be observed in them, are settled by the law regulating the judicial proceedings.

Art. 260. The right of requiring an interrogatory on facts and articles, is reciprocal on the part of the plaintiff and of the defendant.

Art. 261. The party thus interrogated on facts and articles is bound to answer categorically on oath to each of the questions put to him, provided that he be not exposed by his answers to accuse himself of some crime or misdemeanor against the penal laws of this territory.
Except in that case, if he refuses or neglects to answer said interrogatories, or some of them, the fact on which he refufes or neglects to answer, shall be taken for confessed, and the court shall proceed in consequence of that proof in rendering judgement in the case.

Art. 262. The interrogatories made by virtue of the above provisions, must be pertinent, that is, have reference to the issue, otherwise the judge may, wholly or in part, dispense with the answering of the party interrogated.

Art. 263. The answer made by the party interrogated on facts and articles, form a complete proof against himself, but do not form any in his favor, if the facts advanced by him are contradicted either by a positive literal proof, or by the declaration on oath of two credible witnesses.

Art. 264. The party wishing to avail himself of the avowals made by the adverse party, in his answer to the interrogatory of facts and articles, must not divide them, but must take them entire.




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