Assignments of error upon the ground that evidence tendered on the trial was improperly rejected, should distinctly specify its relevancy and materiality. The Court must be able to see its nature and application with reasonable certainty. Otherwise, it cannot say that there is, or is not, error. The presumption is that the rulings of the Court are correct, until the contrary is made to appear in some appropriate way. Whitesides v. Twitty, 8 Ired., 431; Knight v. Killebrew, 86 N. C., 400; Sumner v. Candler, 92 N. C., 634.
Although the evidence which the defendants sought to elicit by the questions put to the witnesses in this case, and which the Court declined to allow them to answer, is not specifically set forth in the assignments of error, still we *518think the questions themselves suggest with sufficient' distinctness and certainty the nature, meaning, relevancy and materiality of the evidence proposed and rejected, as will presently appear.
The plaintiffs, creditors of the intestate of the defendant administrator, alleged that he assigned to the defedants, the Warrens, his brothers, the policy of insurance mentioned, in fraud of and to “hinder, delay and defraud his creditors”; and further, that if this was not so, then he assigned the same to them to the end they might pay the premiums that might, after the assignment, come due thereon, and, in the end, receive the money that might be paid in discharge of the policy and apply the same to reimburse themselves for such premiums as might be paid by them, and also to the payment and discharge of certain debts and liabilities of the intestate. This the defendants broadly denied, alleging, in in substance, that they bought the policy so assigned to them in good faith, paying therefor its fair value. They allege further that their brother, the intestate, was, in his life-time, the co-executor of the defendant W. A. Warren of the will of their deceased father; that the intestate, while so executor, took and used for his own purposes, large sums of money that belonged to his father’s estate and were devoted by the will to the payment of legacies, etc., for all which the defendant W. A. Warren was liable and was bound to pay the same; that they had paid other debts for their said brother; that the aggregate of the sums of money they so paid, and others they were obliged to pay for the intestate, was intended to be, and -was, a fair and just price for the policy of insurance so assigned to them, and that the intestate assigned the same to them in good faith for such consideration.
It hence behooved the defendants (the Warrens) to prove on the trial, and to produce competent evidence for that purpose, that the intestate owed them as alleged, and what sums of money, what premiums they so paid on account of the *519policy of insurance, what of his debts they paid at his instance, and what sum or sums of money the defendant W. A. Warren had paid and was obliged to pay as such co-executor on account of the default of the intestate as one of the executors of his father’s will. There was some evidence produced on the trial by the defendants tending to prove that such matters and things constituted the consideration for the assignment of the policy of insurance. There was likewise some evidence, in some aspects of the whole of the evidence produced, tending to prove that the assignment of the policy of insurance was made as a security for the reimbursement of the defendants (the Warrens) on account of premiums they might pay as required by the policy, and to pay certain debts and discharge certain liabilities of the intestate. Therefore the evidence proposed by the defendants, and which was rejected, tending to prove what sums of money the defendant W. A. Warren had paid on account of the default of his brother, the intestate, as executor of his father’s will, was relevant and material, as was also the other evidence so proposed and rejected tending to show what debts of the intestate the defendants (the Warrens) had paid for him. Such evidence, if it had been received, would have tended, in some measure, to prove a considei-ation, and the amount thereof, for the assignment of the policy, and that the same was made in good faith and for a lawful purpose. Although it was not very direct, its pertinency and- bearing favorable to the defendants were plainly to be seen, and, taken in connection with the whole evidence produced on the trial (very much of it indefinite and unsatisfactory), it might have materially changed the verdict of the jury as to one or more of the issues submitted to them. In any view of the case, the defendants were entitled to have the benefit of it.
It was insisted, however, that the evidence so rejected came within the inhibition of the statute (The Code, §590), and *520was not competent, because the witnesses were interested in the event of the action adversely to the deceased person, and the evidence it was proposed they should give was “concerning a personal transaction or communication between the witness and deceased person,” the intestate named. We think this contention cannot be allowed to prevail.
The Court properly held that the witness W. A.'Warren was not a competent witness to testify as to the contract of assignment of the policy of insurance and the consideration thereof agreed upon, because such testimony would clearly come within the inhibition of the statute j ust cited. But there was some evidence of the witnesses other than the defendants, the Warrens, whose proposed testimony was rejected, going to prove that the intestate made the assignment in question not for any fraudulent purpose, but for a valuable consideration, such as that above mentioned. The defendants, the Warrens, were not competent witnesses to testify as to the contract of assignment, because the deceased assignor could not testify in his own behalf and contradict them as to “ a personal transaction or communication” between him and them. The obvious purpose of the statute is to prevent the surviving interested party, in such cases, from testifying as to such “personal transaction or communication” because the deceased party cannot.
The witnesses were not called upon to testify “concerning a personal transaction or communication” between them and the deceased person, their brother — they were asked to testify as to transactions and communications with persons other than the deceased, and as to which such third persons could testify, if need be. The statute does not, by its terms and purpose, prevent the surviving party from testifying concerning transactions and communications with third persons that may affect adversely the estate of the deceased person, or the rights of persons in and to the same. The questions put to the witnesses, which they were not *521allowed to answer, obviously had reference to the pleadings, the issues and the contentions of the parties on trial. They were intended to elicit from the witness W. A. Warren, first, an aecouut of what money he had paid to persons other than his brother, deceased, for and on account of the latter; and, secondly, what sums of money he had paid to third persons, and for which he was liable, on account of the default of his brother as executor of his father’s will. The question put to P. R. Warren was intended to elicit from him an account of any sums of money he had paid “ on debts” of his brother, deceased; and such evidence was intended to apply and have force on the trial in any pertinent aspect of the case. •Such payments of money for the benefit of the deceased brother were not made to the latter, but to third persons, and he may, or may not, have had knowledge of the same; but, however this might be, the transactions and communications concerning the same were not with him. Nor was the purpose of the evidence to prove the contract of assignment of the policy of insurance, or “ concerning a personal transaction or communication between the witness and the deceased person” about the same. The purpose was to prove the material facts and transactions distinctly with third persons, and to connect and apply them with other material facts and transactions by proper evidence for pertinent purposes on the trial. The evidence was material, not to prove the contract of assignment of the policy, but to prove distinct transactions with third persons — persons other than the deceased party — that grew out of and were, in a sense, a consequence of such contract. In view of ihe pleadings, the issues submitted to the jury, the contentions of the parties, and the whole of the evidence produced on the trial, upon which the evidence rejected might have had some material bearing favorable to the defendants, the latter evidence was relative, material and competent, and ought to have been received by the Court, unless the answers of the witnesses to *522the questions put to them had, contrary to expectation, been irrelevant and not such as their nature and purpose suggested and implied. The following cited authorities are, more or less, in point here: Whitesides v. Green, 64 N. C., 307; Thompson v. Humphrey, 83 N. C., 416; Lockhart v. Bell, 90 N. C., 499; Peacock v. Stott, id., 518; Waddell v. Swann, 91 N. C., 105; Sikes v. Parker, 95 N. C., 232; Loftin v. Loftin, 96 N. C., 94; Carey v. Carey, 104 N. C., 175; Bunn v. Todd, 107 N. C., 266.
There are numerous other assignments of error, but we do not deem it useful or necessary to advert to them, further than to say that most, if not all of them, cannot be sustained.
There is error. The defendants are entitled to a new trial, and we so adjudge. To that end let this opinion be certified to the Superior Court.
Error.