Lemon v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 04 January 1921 |
| Parties | LEMON v. COMMONWEALTH (two cases). |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Report from Supreme Judicial Court, Essex County.
Petitions by Solomon Lemon and Elizabeth Lemon, husband and wife, against the commonwealth, resulting in findings for respondent. On report to the Supreme Judicial Court. Judgment ordered for respondent in each case.
The commonwealth can be impleaded in its own courts only in the manner, to the extent, and for the causes expressed in the statute granting consent thereto.
Where husband and wife, petitioning against the commonwealth for damages for injuries to the personal property of the husband and the person of the wife, were injured by driving their automobile at night into an unlighted iron horse or barrier placed by employees of the highway commission 150 feet away from a section of the road undergoing repairs, petitioners were injured during ‘reconstruction or repair of the highway,’ within St. 1917, c. 344, pt. 1, s 16, so that the commonwealth is not liable; the statutory exemption of the commonwealth from liability not being limited to the part of the way immediately in process of change.
William A. Pew, of Salem, and Alfred W. Putnam, of Boston, for petitioners.
J. Weston Allen, Atty, Gen., and Arthur E. Seagrave, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.
These cases are before this court on a report of a judge of the superior court, after hearing on the petitions of a husband and wife to recover damages for injuries, to the personal property of the husband and to the person of the wife, while they were travelling on the state highway in the town of Spencer.
The following facts, in substance, are shown by the report. September 11, 1917, between 8:30 and 9 p. m. the petitioners were travelling in an automobile from Springfield to Salem on the state highway in the town of Spencer. They ran into an iron horse, about 8 feet long, which had been placed by the employees of the Massachusetts Highway Commission in the road upon which the petitioners were travelling. At the time of the collision there were no lights on the horse and the night was dark, but pleasant. Proper and sufficient lights were placed on the horse at sundown previous to the accident, but three or four hours later, at 8:30 or 9 o'clock, when the accident happened, none of the lanterns was lighted and one was missing. The highway is a main thoroughfare between Worcester and Springfield, and the volume of travel is very large, both day and night, at the season of the year when the plaintiffs were injured. No precautions were taken to prevent the removal or extinguishment of lights, nor in the event of such removal or extinguishment to ascertain the fact and replace or relight them. The horse with which the petitioners collided was on the southerly side of the road, directly in their path, blocking about 8 feet of the road on its southern side. It stood 150 feet to the west of a section of the road which was undergoing repairs. Employees of the highway commission had dug out the southern half of this section preparatory to filling it in with rocks and raising the grade, and the work was going on solely on that half of the road, the northern half remaining open for travel. Upon the horse was a printed sign, stating that the highway was under construction, but the sign was not read and could not have been read by the petitioners previous to the...
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Utah Construction Company v. State Highway Commission
...203 N.W. 1002; Article V, Sec. 22, Const., and courts have necessary jurisdiction to entertain such suits. Sec. 1100-1105, C. S. Lemon v. Comm., (Mass.) 129 N.E. 382; Ross v. State, 173 N.Y. 656; Varnado v. (La.) 136 So. 771; McCandless Const. Co. v. Board, (Kans.) 296 P. 720; Welsbach v. S......
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Ansell v. City of Boston
...v. Newburyport, 227 Mass. 462, 116 N. E. 806, L. R. A. 1917F, 710;Bond v. Billerica, 235 Mass. 119, 126 N. E. 281;Lemon v. Commonwealth, 236 Mass. 599, 601,129 N. E. 382. We are of opinion that the word ‘carriage,’ as used in said section 24, has a signification broad enough to include a mo......
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James Millar Co. v. Commonwealth
...upon the undisputable rule of law that the commonwealth cannot be impleaded in its own court without its consent. Lemon v. Commonwealth, 236 Mass. 599, 600,129 N. E. 382. Sp. St. 1919, c. 187, § 1, reads: ‘The Pilgrim Tercentenary Commission * * * is hereby authorized and directed to acquir......
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Miles v. Commonwealth
...of the constructed traveled roadway,’ such as is a requisite of liability under G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 81, § 18. See Lemon v. Commonwealth, 236 Mass. 599,129 N. E. 382. We assume in favor of the respondent that those words are more restricted than the word ‘way’ in G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 84, § 15......