Fraser v. Chapman

• Decision Date: 27 May 1926
• Citation: Fraser v. Chapman, 256 Mass. 1, 152 N.E. 44 (Mass. 1926)
• Parties: FRASER v. CHAPMAN.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

256 Mass. 1

152 N.E. 44

FRASER

v.CHAPMAN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

May 27, 1926.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Hampden County; R. W. Irwin, Judge.

Action by Minnie E. Fraser against Harvey Chapman.On defendant's exceptions, after verdict for plaintiff.Exceptions overruled.

Homans Robinson and George F. Leary, both of Springfield, for plaintiff.

Ballard & Weston and William G. McKechnie, all of Springfield, for defendant.

SANDERSON, J.

This is an action of tort to recover damages for a personal injury received by plaintiff as the result of being butted by a ram kept by the defendant.The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and the defendant alleged exceptions to the admission of evidence, and to the refusal of the trial judge to give rulings as requested.

The plaintiff lived with her sister and brother-in-law upon his farm, and was engaged in the poultry business.The defendant owned the adjoining farm on which he kept a flock of sheep.On the day in question, thirteen or fourteen shiip had escaped from the defendant's premises and were in the strawberry bed of the plaintiff's brother-in-law eating the plants.Seeing the sheep upon the premises, the plaintiff took a broom from the house, went into the yard, swung it around and threw it on the ground to drive them away.They all ran off except a ram, which began nibbling the broom.The plaintiff, ‘not knowing that the vicious ram was nibbling at the broom,’ went forward quietly to pick it up, and the ram jumped at her and struck her in the leg, throwing her about five feet.She fell on her back, hitting her head and arm, and her leg was broken.The ram then walked around her and pushed her until help arrived and he was driven away by being beaten over the head.

It appeared that the sheep had been upon the same premises at previous times, that the plaintiff had driven them away, and that complaints had been made to the defendant about their trespassing on this and on other neighboring property.The ram had been kept by the defendant for about a year.There was evidence tending to prove that during the fall preceding the injury to the plaintiff the ram was bunting people; that he bunted and hurt the man who had the care of him on three different occasions; that he knocked down another man who worked for the defendant and struck him at another time.The defendant had stated that the ram had bunted him on the knee.The defendant was told before the injury to the plaintiff that the ram had bunted the man who cared for him; that he was apt to hurt the school children; that he was kind of ugly; and that the defendant should look out for him.There was evidence tending to show that the fall is considered the vicious season for rams; that they are unreliable in their dispositions at that season; and that the defendant said the day after the injury that that was the time of year when rams were vicious and he ought to have been tied up.The defendant paid a certain part of the hospital expenses of the plaintiff and asked her brother-in-law how much of those expenses he thought the defendant ought to pay.The defendant's testimony tended to prove that he had no knowledge of the vicious tendencies of the ram, and so far as he knew the ram had never injured anyone.

The declaration charged the defendant with negligence in permitting the ram to escape and be upon the premises where the plaintiff lived, and with knowingly keeping a ram of a vicious disposition accustomed to attack mankind.Although negligence is not an essential element in the case of injuries from an animal known by its keeper to be vicious, evidence on that issue is competent.Barnes v. Chapin, 4 Allen, 444, 81 Am. Dec. 710;Lyons v. Merrick, 105 Mass. 71;Hardiman v. Wholley, 172 Mass. 411, 52 N. E. 518,70 Am. St. Rep. 292.As the jury would have been justified in finding that the defendant was negligent in permitting the ram to escape from his...