Barron v. City of Boston
Decision Date | 04 January 1905 |
Citation | 187 Mass. 168,72 N.E. 951 |
Parties | BARRON v. CITY OF BOSTON. |
Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Whipple Sears & Ogden and Alex. Lincoln, for plaintiff.
Arthur L. Spring, for defendant.
This is an action to recover back a tax assessed upon the personal property and poll of the plaintiff on May 1, 1901. The first question is whether he was a resident of Boston at that time. He owned a house in Boston, which he occupied a part of the time. He also owned a large estate in Cohasset, consisting of a dwelling house containing 20 rooms, and a farmhouse stables, and a cowhouse. This he occupied a considerable part of the time in each year. Early in the year 1900 he was a resident of Boston, but he stayed with his family at the house in Cohasset from May to December in that year. The judge who heard the case found as follows:
On this finding of facts, the ruling should have been that he was a resident of Cohasset. In Viles v. Waltham, 157 Mass 542, 32 N.E. 901, 34 Am. St. Rep. 311, the law as to domicile is stated as follows: 'To acquire a domicile, there must be residence in a place, and an intention to make that place one's home.' The only act, apart from the intention of the actor, which is absolutely necessary to the acquisition of a domicile in a city or town, is that at some time the person must go to the place and take up his abode there. If he is abiding there while his domicile is elsewhere, and if while so abiding he forms an intention immediately to make it his home permanently or for an indefinite period, and continues to abide there in pursuance of that purpose, he thereby acquires a new domicile. There is no requirement of law that he shall give notice to assessors or to anybody else. The act of going from one place to another, or some other act indicating a change of residence, is often referred to as a foundation for the introduction in evidence of the person's declarations as a part of the res gestae. Declarations accompanying such acts are often important evidence of intention, bearing upon the question whether there was a bona fide change of residence. See Viles v. Waltham, ubi supra. In McConnell v. Kelly, 138 Mass. 372, Chief Justice Morton states the rule as follows: In Thayer v. Boston, 124 Mass. 132-145, 26 Am. Rep. 650, Mr. Justice Colt quoted from Lyman v. Fiske, 17 Pick. 231-234, 28 Am. Dec. 293, a part of the definition of domicile, as follows: ...
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