Davis v. Inhabitants of Rockport
| Decision Date | 27 January 1913 |
| Citation | 213 Mass. 279,100 N.E. 612 |
| Parties | DAVIS v. INHABITANTS OF ROCKPORT. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Wm A. Pew, of Gloucester, for plaintiff.
Charles H. Cleaves, of Boston, for defendant.
There was evidence that at the time of the accident the plank was in the possession and under the control of the defendant that it was in a defective and dangerous condition, that this condition was known by the defendant and might have been remedied before the accident by the exercise of due care on the part of its officers or agents, and that the plaintiff being in the exercise of due care, while passing over the walk where 'as the guest of her son she had a right of way by invitation or inducement of the' defendant, was injured by reason of the defect. There can be no doubt that in this state of the evidence the plaintiff would have been entitled to go to the jury if the defendant had been a private person or (with some few exceptions not here material) a private corporation; and the defendant has not contended to the contrary.
But the defendant contends that it is a quasi corporation invested with certain powers and charged with certain duties all public and limited in their nature, and that the acts upon which the plaintiff relies to hold the defendant were ultra vires, and hence it is not answerable. It becomes necessary to examine with some precision the relation sustained by the defendant to this walk.
The defendant owned about 40 acres of upland and beach, all situated within the territorial limits of the town. The land was bounded on the south by the sea about 2,500 feet. Fronting the beach was a sand bluff varying in height from 2 to 8 feet, the remaining land being soft marsh and tidal ponds. Before the time of the accident the town had caused this bluff to be surveyed and laid out into house lots and plans to be made preparatory to leasing the same to persons desiring to rent summer cottages. These plans showed '[one] hundred and eighty house lots, in four tiers of lots,' and open spaces, some running parallel with the beach and some substantially at right angles with it, designated as roads. A passageway, 12 feet wide along the top of the bluff and between the front tier of lots and the beach, was reserved by the town and at the time of the accident was in the possession and under the control of the defendant. This was used, and intended by the defendant to be used, as a common passageway to and from the various lots and along the beach front.
The defendant leased the respective lots for a period not exceeding 10 years, receiving a substantial rental therefor, and at the time of the accident there were outstanding leases of about 100 lots, and about 70 houses had been constructed by the tenants. In a part of the 12-foot reservation above mentioned a plank walk had been laid by tenants in front of their lots, and some of the tenants had protected their property by building bulkheads along the front of it. One of the streets which ran from the front passageway towards the interior was called 'Fourteenth street,' running between the two frony lots numbered respectively 13 and 15. In the spring of 1910 a part of the bank and the plank walks in the vicinity of Fourteenth street were washed away by a high tide during a storm, leaving a chasm 5 or 6 feet deep and of the whole width of the street, where it joined the reservation above named. Over this chasm was constructed by the defendant the defective and dangerous walk where the plaintiff was injured.
Briefly stated, the defendant laid out the bluff into house lots and ways with a view to leasing the lots to persons who might erect summer cottages, and at the time of the accident about 70 houses had been erected by tenants under leases made by the defendant. The ways including the place where the accident occurred had not been leased, nor was it intended by the defendant that they should be. There is no question that everything which was done in the name of the defendant was authorized by it so far as respects the form and substance of the votes. Were the votes and was the action thereunder ultra vires?
The land was 'common land which belonged to the town, and had never been sold or divided.' The only use ever made of it was that By this language we understand that this was land within the limits of the town which had not been granted by the...
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