Hooton v. G.F. Redmond & Co.
| Decision Date | 04 March 1921 |
| Parties | HOOTON v. G. F. REDMOND & CO., Inc. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Lawton, Judge.
Action by J. Laura Hooton, administratrix, against G. F. Redmond & Co., Incorporated, with trustee process. From judgment for plaintiff by default on account of defendant's failure to answer interrogatories, defendant appeals. Default removed, and case ordered to stand for further hearing.
Edward E. Ginsburg, of Boston, and Harold W. Holt, of Arlington (J. Butler Studley, of Boston, of counsel), for appellant.
H. W. Ogden, of Boston, for appellee.
This appeal presents a question of practice respecting answers to interrogatories. The plaintiff filed interrogatories under St. 1913, c. 815, section 3 whereof provides that ‘if, within ten days after notice of the filing thereof, the party interrogated does not answer the interrogatories the court shall upon motion order the party interrogated to answer such of the interrogatories as it finds proper.’ The defendant did not answer at all within the ten days, whereupon the court ordered the interrogatories answered within twenty days. There was no compliance with the order and thereupon an order was entered that the defendant be defaulted unless answers were filed within twenty days. On the day on which this order was entered the defendant filed two answers, the second of which stated that the ‘following schedule is supplied as answers to all of the succeeding interrogatories,’ and purported to contain a chronological statement of all transactions between the plaintiff and the defendant. Thereafter without further hearing upon the sufficiency of the answers, the defendant was defaulted and judgment ordered for the plaintiff.
Neither order was in terms that all the interrogatories, fifty-one in number, should be answered categorically. The question of the sufficiency of the answers was never specifically passed upon. It is to be inferred that by ordering the defendant defaulted they were found to be insufficient. But the defendant was given no opportunity to correct its answers and make them adequate. In this there was error. The case is within the authority of Fels v. Raymond, 139 Mass. 98, 28 N. E. 691. The point there settled was that after answers to interrogatories are filed, there must be an adjudication that the answers are imperfect and the interrogated party be given an opportunity to amend them, before nonsuit or default can be entered. In the particulars here involved, the present statute is not materially different from that then in force. A default might have been entered on failure of the defendant to comply with the first order in the case at bar; but that was not done. The defendant was given further opportunity and filed some answers. These should have been adjudged insufficient and the defendant given a chance to amend them before the case was ripe for default. This course in substance and...
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77 Hawai'i 320, Kam Fui Trust v. Brandhorst
...that the bill be taken for confessed." Felton v. Felton, 123 Conn. 564, 567, 196 A. 791, 793 (1938) (quoting Hooton v. G.F. Redmond & Co., 237 Mass. 508, 513, 130 N.E. 107 (1921)). See also 10 C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil § 2682 at 406 n. 2 (1983) (u......
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...presented at the first trial. West v. Platt, 124 Mass. 353, 355;Pead v. Trull, 173 Mass. 450, 452, 53 N. E. 901;Hooton v. G. F. Redmond & Co., 237 Mass. 508, 513, 130 N. E. 107 and cases there collected. [5] If, as the plaintiff now contends, the decision of the case when it was here before......
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