McMahon v. O'Connor
| Decision Date | 10 May 1884 |
| Citation | 137 Mass. 216 |
| Parties | Fanny McMahon v. Jeremiah O'Connor |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Suffolk. Tort for the conversion of personal property. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Blodgett, J., the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff; and the defendant alleged exceptions, which appear in the opinion.
Exceptions overruled.
G. W Searle, for the defendant.
L. J Drake, for the plaintiff.
The auditor's report finds that the defendant converted to his own use the chattels specified in the declaration, and that he "owes the plaintiff upon the various items of the account the sum of money respectively opposite each item," setting forth a sum certain in respect of each. These words plainly import that the goods belonged to the plaintiff; and the objection that the auditor does not find that fact in terms, and that his phraseology is inapt, is too refined, even if it were open here upon exceptions to the refusal to recommit, or to the admission of the report in evidence; Butterworth v. Western Assurance Co. 132 Mass. 489; or to the refusal to rule upon the sufficiency of the plaintiff's evidence to maintain the action, or to direct a verdict before the whole testimony was closed upon both sides. Wetherbee v. Potter, 99 Mass. 354. Kingsford v. Hood, 105 Mass. 495.
At the close of the argument for the defendant, his counsel presented twenty-three requests for instructions; but the court declined to rule upon them, on the ground that they were not seasonably presented, at the same time saying that, at the close of the charge, the counsel could ask for such further instructions, and except to such parts of the charge, as he saw fit. At the end of the charge, the court repeated that, if there were matters which counsel conceived had been omitted, they might call attention to them. This course was exactly in accordance with the decision in Ela v. Cockshott, 119 Mass. 416, 418, as generally understood and acted upon.
It is the undoubted right of parties to present requests for rulings, and to have them passed upon. But the right is not infringed by requiring it to be exercised in a reasonable way. So far as a ruling upon hypothetical facts is the modern substitute for a judgment upon the sufficiency of a pleading alleging the same facts, as has been suggested in an ingenious work, Evans Pl. 103-113, Ib. (Miller's ed.) c. ...
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...procedure to that end. Crocker v. Justices of the Superior Court, 208 Mass. 162, 170, 180, 94 N.E. 369,21 Ann.Cas. 1061;McMahon v. O'Connor, 137 Mass. 216, 217;Ela v. Cockshott, 119 Mass. 416, 418. In many connections the Superior Court ‘means the court held, whether by one or more judges, ......
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...upon one branch of the case, like a general exception to the whole charge, is nugatory. See Curry v. Porter, 125 Mass. 94; McMahon v. O'Connor, 137 Mass. 216; Jackman Arlington Mills, Id. 277, 285; Wright v. Wright, 139 Mass. 177. The rule is the same, though the bill of exceptions purports......
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...before arguments. It was so stated in express terms by Chief Justice Gray in Ela v. Cockshott, 119 Mass. 416, in 1876. In McMahon v. O'Connor, 137 Mass. 216, it was said by Mr. Justice Holmes in 1884 that-- ‘It is the undoubted right of parties to present requests for rulings, and to have t......
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Buck v. Territory
... ... phrases and found special exceptions thereon. Curry v ... Porter, 125 Mass. 94; McMahon v. O'Connor, ... 137 Mass. 216; Wright v. Wright, 139 Mass. 177, 29 N.E ... 380." In Commonwealth v. Meserve, 154 Mass. 75, ... 27 N.E. 997, the ... ...