Knox v. City of Springfield

• Citation: 173 N.E. 439,273 Mass. 109
• Parties: KNOX v. CITY OF SPRINGFIELD. BARNES v. SAME.
• Decision Date: 20 November 1930
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

273 Mass. 109

173 N.E. 439

KNOX

v.CITY OF SPRINGFIELD.

BARNES

v.SAME.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

Nov. 20, 1930.

Appeal from Supreme Judicial Court, Hampden County.

Suits by Sadie B. Knox and by Vincent E. Barnes against the City of Springfield. From interlocutory decrees denying motions to amend bills of complaint, plaintiff in each case appeals.

Appeals dismissed.

L. C. Henin, of Springfield, for appellants.

J. P. Kirby, of Springfield, for appellee.

RUGG, C. J.

These are suits in equity. The allegations of each bill in substance are that the plaintiff is owner of land upon which the defendant has forcibly entered and trespassed and taken material therefrom, and the prayers are for an accounting and damages and costs. Each bill was filed in December, 1926. The defendant seasonably answered. Thereafter, in 1928, each plaintiff filed a motion to amend by substituting a much longer bill of complaint. Those motions were denied by interlocutory decrees. Each plaintiff appears by the docket entry to have appealed from that decree, although that appeal is not printed in the record. In June, 1930, each plaintiff filed a second motion to amend the bill of complaint. Each motion was denied by an interlocutory decree entered in June, 1930, in each case. From that interlocutory decree the plaintiff in each case appealed.

[1] Plainly the cases are not rightly here. In neither case has there been any trial upon the issues raised on the bill of complaint filed in December, 1926, upon which issue was duly joined. Suits in equity cannot be brought before this court as of right upon appeal except from a final decree. The only way in which an appeal from an interlocutory decree can be brought to this court before final decree is by report of the judge entering the decree. G. L. c. 214, §§ 26, 30; Fuller v. Chapin, 165 Mass. 1, 42 N. E. 115;Hutchins v. Nickerson, 212 Mass. 118, 120, 98 N. E. 791;McCracken's Case, 251 Mass. 347, 350, 146 N. E. 904;Romanausky v. Skutulas, 258 Mass. 190, 192, 154 N. E. 856;Barringer v. Northridge, 266 Mass. 315, 318, 165 N. E. 400. The change wrought in equity practice by G. L. c. 231, §§ 96, 144, although never applicable to records similar to those here presented, has been effaced, and the general equity practice, to the effect that equity cases can come before this court as of right only by appeal from a final decree, has been restored by St. 1928, c. 306, § 2. Siciliano v. Barbuto, 265 Mass. 390, 394, 164 N. E. 467. It follows...