Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corporation v. theophilus P. Chandler &Amp; Others

• Decision Date: 12 September 1876
• Citation: 121 Mass. 1
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corporation v. Theophilus P. Chandler & others

121 Mass. 1

Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corporation v. Theophilus P. Chandler & others

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

September 12, 1876

Norfolk. Writ of entry. The case was argued at the bar in January, 1876, and was afterwards argued in writing. So much of it as is material to the understanding of the point decided is stated in the opinion.

Exceptions sustained.

A. D Chandler, for the tenants.

M Williams, Jr., for the demandant.

Morton, J. Endicott & Devens, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Morton, J.

This is a writ of entry to recover two tracts of land situated in Brookline. At the trial, it appeared that the demandant had previously brought a writ of entry to recover the demanded premises, and the tenants contend that the judgment in that suit is a bar to the present action.

The demandant shows no other title than that upon which it relied in the former suit. In that case, it was found as a fact, that, at the time when a former aqueduct company made its deed to the city of Boston, under whom the demandant claimed, said aqueduct company was disseised of the demanded premises, and it was adjudicated that said deed conveyed no title to the city of Boston, and therefore that the demandant had no title which could be enforced in a writ of entry. This finding and adjudication is conclusive between the parties. It is a well settled principle, that where a right or a fact has been judicially tried and determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, the judgment thereon, so long as it remains unreversed, is conclusive upon the parties. The facts put in issue and tried and determined became fixed facts between the parties for all purposes. Sawyer v. Woodbury, 7 Gray 499. Stevens v. Taft, 8 Gray 419.

This principle is decisive of the case at bar. The former judgment is a bar to this suit, because the two actions are between the same parties, for the same cause of action, and depend upon the same facts and evidence. In the opinion in the former case, the court assigned as a conclusive reason why the demandant could not maintain its action, that, the aqueduct corporation being disseised at the date of its deed to the city of Boston, it could convey no title to a stranger. Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corporation v Chandler, 9 Allen 159. It is true that the court also stated, as an additional reason why the action could not be maintained upon the facts as they then existed, that the unrecorded deed from the...