Reid v. Bacas

• Decision Date: 26 October 1944
• Citation: 57 N.E.2d 632,317 Mass. 240
• Parties: REID v. BACAS (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

317 Mass. 240

57 N.E.2d 632

REID

v.BACAS (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Plymouth.

Oct. 26, 1944.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Plymouth County; Spalding, Judge.

Action by Mary E. Reid against Theodora Bacas and against Andrew Bacas for conversion of plaintiff's chattels. To review adverse judgments, defendants bring exceptions.

Exceptions overruled.

Before FIELD, C. J., and LUMMUS, QUA, and RONAN, JJ.

L. H. Miller, of Brockton, for plaintiff.

C. F. Glendon, of Brookline, for defendants.

RONAN, Justice.

Upon the conveyance of the real estate, which was owned by the plaintiff's son, to the male defendant who took title in the name of his wife, the defendant in the first action, the plaintiff had the right within a reasonable time thereafter to remove her furniture and household effects, which she used in maintaining her home upon the premises while they were owned by her son, Ellis v. Paige, 1 Pick. 43;Pratt v. Farrar, 10 Allen 519, 521;Talbot v. Whipple, 14 Allen 177, 181;Lash v. Ames, 171 Mass. 487, 490, 50 N.E. 996;Mescall v. Somerset Savings Bank, 305 Mass. 575, 577, 26 N.E.2d 609, and the evidence of the refusal of the defendants upon her demands seasonably made to permit her to enter the premises and to remove her goods, and of the detention and disposition of her property by throwing it ‘on the dump,’ as one of the defendants stated in the presence of the other, was sufficient, if believed, to show the exercise by the defendants of dominion and control over the plaintiff's chattels, which was inconsistent with the rights of the plaintiff and deprived her of her property. There was enough evidence to support the alleged conversion of the plaintiff's chattels, and the defendnats fail to show any error of law in the failure of the jury to accept as true testimony tending to show that there was no conversion or in the denial of their motions for directed verdicts. Guthrie v. Jones, 108 Mass. 191;Korbe v. Barbour, 130 Mass. 255;Scollard v. Brooks, 170 Mass. 445, 49 N.E. 741;McGonigle v. Victor H. J. Belleisle Co., 186 Mass. 310, 71 N.E. 569;Jean v. Cawley, 218 Mass. 271, 277, 105 N.E. 1009;Bemis v. Curtis, 237 Mass. 60, 61, 129 N.E. 360;Lawyers Mortgage Investment Corp. of Boston v. Paramount Laundries Inc., 287 Mass. 357, 191 N.E. 398;Geguzis v. Brockton Standard Shoe Co., 291 Mass. 368, 197 N.E. 51;Baseball Publishing Co. v. Bruton, 302 Mass. 54, 18 N.E.2d 362, 119 A.L.R. 1518;Brown v. General Trading Co., 310 Mass. 263, 37 N.E.2d 987;Congregation Anshe Sefard of Keap Street, Inc. v. Title Guarantee & Trust Co., 291 N.Y. 35, 50 N.E.2d 534, 148 A.L.R. 647; Am.Law Inst. Restatement: Torts, § 178.

The defendants introduced in evidence an interrogatory propounded to the plaintiff by the female defendant, which requested the plaintiff to state all the acts committed by the defendant ‘in ejecting the plaintiff's personal property from the premises,’ and which the plaintiff answered by stating that she was informed and believedthat all her property had been thrown away. The plaintiff was then properly allowed to read to the jury another interrogatory and answer of the plaintiff to the effect that the acts done in...