Whiting v. Com.

• Decision Date: 26 November 1907
• Parties: WHITING v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

196 Mass. 468

82 N.E. 670

WHITING v. COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

November 26, 1907

COUNSEL

Winfred H. Whiting, for petitioner.

Dana Malone, Atty. Gen., and W. P. Ball, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.

OPINION

MORTON J.

The petitioner was the treasurer and general manager of the L. M Harris Manufacturing Company, a corporation owning and operating two cotton mills at West Boylston, and engaged in the manufacture of various kinds of cotton goods and of cotton yarn. He was also clerk of the corporation, and a director and stockholder. As treasurer and general manager he made all purchases and sales, superintended the manufacture of all goods and attended to the financial affairs of the company. His whole time was thus occupied. For his services as treasurer, general manager and clerk, he received a salary equal to $2,500 a year. He had been treasurer, general manager and clerk, by successive annual re-elections, since the corporation was formed in 1890, and was acting as such at the time of the taking by the commonwealth in February 1898 of the real estate and machinery of the corporation for the purposes of ther metropolitan water act. He had been superintendent and general manager for many years before the corporation was formed. The commissioners found that he had reasonable grounds to expect that he would be continued in his position as treasurer, general manager and clerk so long as he was able to perform the work required of him; the stock being all held by himself and his family and relatives, and his management having been successful and satisfactory.

The question is whether the petitioner owned an established business on land in West Boylston on April 1, 1895. We do not see how it can be said that he did. He had no business except that which he did for the corporation as clerk and treasurer and general manager thereof. That could be spoken of, on doubt, as in a sense his business, meaning thereby his occupation or employment. But, though the circumstances were such as apparently to insure to him a certain degree of permanency in his tenure of the offices to which he had been elected it can not be said in any fair sense of the words that by reason thereof he owned an established business on land in West Boylston. The business which he did was the corporation's business and it was carried on by the corporation through its officers, agents...