Knox v. City of Springfield

• Decision Date: 13 November 1930
• Parties: SADIE B. KNOX v. CITY OF SPRINGFIELD. VINCENT E. BARNES v. SAME.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

273 Mass. 109

SADIE B. KNOX v. CITY OF SPRINGFIELD. VINCENT E. BARNES v. SAME.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampden.

November 13, 1930

November 6, 1930.

Present: RUGG, C.

J., CARROLL SANDERSON, & FIELD, JJ.

Equity Pleading and Practice, Appeal, Amendment.

Since the enactment of St. 1928, c. 306, Section 2, a suit in equity cannot be brought to this court by an appeal from an interlocutory decree; the only way in which the question of the propriety of an interlocutory decree can be brought to this court before final decree is by report of the judge entering the decree. It was stated that the practice concerning appeals in equity under G.L.c.

231, Section 96 previous to the enactment of St. 1928, c. 306, Section 2, did not permit an appeal from an interlocutory decree denying a motion by the plaintiff to amend the bill.

It was stated that the disposition of a motion to amend the bill in a suit in equity rests in the sound judicial discretion of the judge who hears the motion; and that, in the absence of abuse of discretion by him, his denial of such a motion cannot be revised by this court.

TWO BILLS IN EQUITY, filed in the Supreme Judicial Court on December 21 1926.

Interlocutory decrees denying motions by the plaintiff to amend the bill in each suit in 1928 and 1930 were entered by orders of Wait J., of Pierce, J., and of Crosby, J. The plaintiff in each suit appealed from such decrees.

The case was submitted on briefs. L.C. Henin, for the plaintiffs.

J.P. Kirby, for the defendant.

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.

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, Sections 26, 30. Fuller v Chapin, 165 Mass. 1. Hutchins v. Nickerson, 212 Mass. 118 , 120. McCracken's Case, 251 Mass. 347, 350. ...