Cook v. Bartlett

• Citation: 179 Mass. 576,61 N.E. 266
• Parties: COOK v. BARTLETT.
• Decision Date: 18 October 1901
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

179 Mass. 576

61 N.E. 266

COOK

v.BARTLETT.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampshire.

Oct. 18, 1901.

Exceptions from superior court, Hampshire county; Daniel W. Bond, Judge.

Action by John Cook against Leon G. Bartlett. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled.

Defendant requested the court to instruct the jury: ‘(1) The plaintiff cannot recover unless physical injury causing impairment of health, and consequent inability to render services, was the proximate result of the defendant's act. (2) Plaintiff cannot recover for loss of services resulting from mental distress unless said mental distress causes impairment of health and consequent inability to render services, and is the direct and immediate result of the defendant's act. (3) Plaintiff cannot recover unless there has been actual loss of services, the direct and proximate result of the defendant's act. (4) Plaintiff cannot recover unless there has been loss of capacity to render services, the direct and proximate result of the defendant's act. (5) Plaintiff cannot recover unless the jury is satisfied that his daughter was disabled from rendering services, and that the defendant's unlawful act was the direct and immediate cause of her disability.’

Stephen S. Taft and Calvin Coolidge, for plaintiff.

C. L. Gardner and C. G. Gardner, for defendant.

KNOWLTON, J.

The defendant's first contention is that there was error in permitting the jury to find on the evidence that Lilla B. Cook was legally adopted as the plaintiff's daughter under the laws of Vermont, where the parties resided at the time of the adoption. Under the law of that state, the instrument signed and sealed by the adopting parents, and by a parent, guardian, or representative of the child, must be acknowledged before the judge of probate of the district where it is to be filed. The certified copy of the records shows that the proceedings followed the statute exactly, unless the signatures below the certificate of acknowledgment failed to show an acknowledgment before the judge of probate. The certificate is in the prescribed form, but after the words ‘before me’ we have two official signatures, as follows: ‘Fred G. Field, Notary Public.’ ‘Hugh Henry, Judge of Probate, District of Windsor,’-the last appearing in the copy of the record below the first, and a little to the left of it. We find nothing in the statute or in the record to give to this signature of the judge of probate any other meaning than that which it should have as evidence that the paper was acknowledged before him as required by the statute. Moreover, the statute (section 2861, V. S. 1894) provides that the instrument shall be recorded ‘if it appears to the probate court that the provisions of the statute have been complied with.’ This instrument was recorded. The natural inference is that the judge knew that the law had been complied with by an acknowledgment before him. What is the law of a foreign state is primarily a question of fact, but, so far as it appears in statutes and decisions which are not conflicting, the construction of the language is for the court. Wylie v. Cotter, 170 Mass. 356, 49 N. E. 746,64 Am. St. Rep. 305;Ufford v. Spaulding, 156 Mass. 65, 30 N. E. 360;Bride v. Clark, 161 Mass. 130, 36 N. E. 745. Whether enough appears in the record and statutes introduced in this case to justify an instruction, as matter of law, that upon the undisputed facts the child was legally adopted, we need not decide. The instruction...