Harriott v. Plimpton
| Citation | 44 N.E. 992,166 Mass. 585 |
| Parties | HARRIOTT v. PLIMPTON et al. SAME v. PLIMPTON (two cases). SAME v. MORRILL. |
| Decision Date | 21 October 1896 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Exceptions from supreme judicial court, Suffolk county.
Action of tort brought by Harriott against Plimpton, Morrill, and Squires jointly. Verdict and judgment for defendants, and plaintiff excepts. Exceptions overruled.
Action by Harriott against Morrill for slander. Verdict and judgment for defendant, and plaintiff excepts. Exceptions overruled.
Action by Harriott against Plimpton for slander. Verdict and judgment for defendant, and plaintiff excepts. Exceptions overruled.
Action by Harriott against Plimpton for negligence. Verdict and judgment for defendant, and plaintiff excepts. Exceptions sustained.
J.J. Feely, for plaintiff.
M.O. Adams and H.V. Cunningham, for defendants.
These actions of tort were tried together. The evidence tended to show that the plaintiff, a jeweler and repairer of watches, and engaged to be married to the daughter of the defendant Morrill, received, while at work, an accidental injury, which required the attention of a physician and the application of remedies to his private parts. The defendant Squires, at whose house he boarded, told the defendant Morrill that the plaintiff had a disease, and was not fit to marry, and, at Morrill's request, made a similar statement to his daughter and family. Morrill took the plaintiff to the office of the defendant Plimpton, who was Morrill's nephew and a physician, and who examined the plaintiff, and told him privately that he had gonorrhea, and repeated the statement to him in presence of Morrill. The same statement was repeated to Morrill's daughter and family, both by Morrill himself, and by Plimpton at Morrill's request, and both Morrill and Plimpton made substantially the same statement to some other persons. The plaintiff's marriage engagement was broken, and he brought the actions, one of which is against Morrill, Plimpton, and Squires jointly, for causing the breach of the engagement, one against Morrill for slander, one against Plimpton for slander, and the other against Plimpton for negligence in making the examination. At the trial the jury found specifically that the plaintiff did not have gonorrhea, and that neither Morrill nor Plimpton was actuated by express malice, and, under direction from the presiding justice, rendered a verdict against the plaintiff in each case.
Considering, first, the suit in which the three defendants are joined, there was no evidence of a conspiracy, and no evidence that the defendants Plimpton and Squires joined with each other in doing any of the acts which the evidence tended to prove. The wrong charged is not like a trespass or assault, in which all are principals, but one which “must be the joint act of all the defendants, either in fact or in legal intendment and effect,” or the plaintiff cannot recover. Parsons v. Winchell, 5 Cush. 592;Mulchey v. Society, 125 Mass. 487, 490. There having been no conspiracy, and no such connection between the three defendants as could make the acts of each the joint...
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... ... ( Hewitt v. Eisenbart, 36 Neb. 794, 55 N.W. 252; ... Olmsted v. Gere, 100 Pa. 127; Harriott v ... Plimpton, 166 Mass. 585, 44 N.E. 992; Vanhooser v ... Berghoff, 90 Mo. 487, 3 S.W. 72; Carpenter v ... Blake, 60 Barb. (N. Y.) 488; ... ...
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