Beers v. Mcginnis
| Decision Date | 15 March 1906 |
| Citation | 77 N.E. 768,191 Mass. 279 |
| Parties | BEERS v. McGINNIS. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Frank H. Noyes, for plaintiff.
Curtis Abbott, for defendant.
This is an action of tort, in which the plaintiff alleges in her amended declaration that the defendant forcibly entered her close, being land with buildings thereon situated in Newton and incumbered the same with tools and implements, trod down the grass, entered one of the buildings and threw down and injured its door, and did other wrongs to the close and buildings. The case was tried before the chief justice of the superior court without a jury. The defendant claimed in justification of his acts that he entered her premises only to finish the work of building a barn for her under a contract with her. The alleged trespass was on the 13th day of May, 1903, the time of the last work done by the defendant. The plaintiff claimed that before this time she had forbidden him to enter her premises, and that his entry to do this work was unlawful. He had afterwards claimed a lien for a balance due him from the plaintiff for this work and filed a certificate and brought a petition to establish a lien upon her estate, under Rev. Laws, c. 197, upon which a trial had been had and his lien upon the plaintiff's estate had been established, and a warrant of sale issued; after which the amount due thereon was paid, and the present plaintiff then brought this action. The work done by this defendant upon the 13th day of May, 1903, was the last work done by him, and the only work that he had done within 30 days of the time when he filed his certificate of lien, under Rev. Laws, c. 197, § 6.
The defendant claimed, and offered evidence to show, that the main issue tried in his lien petition was whether he had any right on the premises on the 13th day of May when he did his last work there, and whether he previously had been forbidden by the plaintiff to enter the premises; that both sides at that trial gave evidence on that issue, which the presiding justice, in his charge to the jury, commented on; and he contended that the plaintiff was estopped, by the judgment in that suit, from claiming that his entry on that day was an unlawful breach of her close. There was contradictory evidence as to whether the defendant and his men unnecessarily and unreasonably, on that day, passed over newly seeded portions of the plaintiff's premises, and did unnecessary and unreasonable damage. The defendant, in various requests, asked the court to rule that the plaintiff had not made out a case; that she was estopped to maintain her action by the judgment in the previous action to enforce the mechanic's lien; that if the question of whether or not the defendant was trespassing when he entered the plaintiff's premises on May 13, 1903, and did the work whereby he was enabled to maintain his lien, was tried upon his petition to enforce his lien, judgment having been entered in his favor in that case, this action could not be maintained; and that there was no evidence on which to hold the defendant in trespass. The court refused each of these requests and ruled that the defendant was rightfully within the plaintiff's close for the work which he had done; but declined to rule that this prevented the plaintiff from recovering, and found specially that in making repairs upon the plaintiff's premises on the day in question the defendant or his men unnecessarily and unreasonably passed over newly seeded portions of the plaintiff's premises, and did...
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