Graves v. Johnson

Citation60 N.E. 383,179 Mass. 53
PartiesGRAVES et al. v. JOHNSON.
Decision Date22 May 1901
CourtUnited States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

179 Mass. 53
60 N.E. 383

GRAVES et al.
v.
JOHNSON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 22, 1901.


Exceptions from supreme judicial court, Suffolk county.

Action by Chester H. Graves and others against Walter B. Johnson. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendant brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled.


Alfred [179 Mass. 57]Hemenway and John Noble, Jr., for plaintiffs.

Charles J. Martell, for defendant.


HOLMES, C. J.

This is the second time that this case comes before this court. 156 Mass. 211, 30 N. E. 818. It is a suit for the price of intoxicating liquors sold here. At the first trial it was found that they were sold with a view to their being resold by the defendant in Maine against the laws of that state; and on that state of facts it was held that the action would not lie. At the second trial it was found that the plaintiffs' agent supposed, rightly, that the defendant intended to resell the liquors in Maine unlawfully, but that the plaintiffs and their agent were and were known by the defendant to be indifferent to what he did with the goods, and to have no other motive or purpose than to sell them in Massachusetts in the usual course of business. Seemingly the plaintiffs did not act in aid of the defendant's intent beyond selling him the goods. The judge refused to rule that the plaintiffs' knowledge of the defendant's intent would prevent their recovery, and the case is here again on exceptions.

[179 Mass. 58]The principles involved are stated and some of the cases are collected in the former decision. All that it is necessary for us to say now is that in our opinion a sale otherwise lawful is not connected with subsequent unlawful conduct by the mere fact that the seller correctly divines the buyer's unlawful intent, closely enough to make the sale unlawful. It will be observed that the finding puts the plaintiffs' knowledge of the defendant's intent no higher than an uncommunicated inference as to what the defendant was likely to do.

Of course the defendant was free to change his mind, and there was no communicated desire of the plaintiffs to co-operate with the defendant's present intent, such as was supposed in the former decision, but on the contrary an understood indifference to everything beyond an ordinary sale in Massachusetts. It may be that, as in the case of attempts (Com. v. Peaslee [Mass.] 59 N. E. 55;Com. v. Kennedy, 170 Mass. 18, 22, 48 N. E. 770) the line of proximity will vary somewhat according to the gravity of the evil...

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