Uhlein v. Cromack

Decided January 15, 1872

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1872-01-15

Tort for killing the plaintiff’s dog. Trial, and verdict for the plaintiff with $65 damages, in the superior court, before Putnam, J., who allowed the following bill of exceptions: “ The plaintiff introduced evidence tending to show that he was the owner of a watch dog, which he had trained for the purpose, and kept on his messuage in Malden, to protect his family in his absence, he being required by the nature of his business to be absent several months each year; that he…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1872-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently April 2014

7 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Chapman, C. J.

¶1By the common law, a dog is property, for an injury to which an action will lie. Wright v. Ramscot, 1 Saund. 84. 2 Bl. Com. 393. In this Commonwealth the keeping of. dogs is regulated by the Gen. Sts. c. 88, §§ 52 & seq., and the St. of 1867, c. 130. The plaintiff kept his dog restrained in conformity with the statutes. Although the dog was a dangerous animal, and accustomed to bite those who came near it, yet, as it was confined, so that all persons properly on the plaintiff’s premises were in no danger from it, and was otherwise kept according to law, and the defendant had not been attacked by it, the jury were properly instructed that the act of the defendant was not justifiable. They were also properly instructed that the plaintiff had a right thus to keep it for the protection of his family.

¶2Exceptions overruled.