How have adverse inferences been developed in civil cases respecting failure to tender a witness?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Tsakumis and Trigate v. FirstClass Systems, 2001 BCSC 322 (CanLII):
The general rule developed in civil cases respecting adverse inferences from failure to tender a witness goes back at least to Blatch v. Archer (1774), 1 Cowp. 63, 98 E.R. 969, where, at p. 65, Lord Mansfield stated: It is certainly a maxim that all evidence is to be weighed according to the proof which it was in the power of one side to have produced, and in the power of the other to have contradicted.
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