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110 Mass. 175

Commonwealth v. Weatherhead

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided October 15, 1872

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1872-10-15

Complaint by Leonard J. Wilson to the Police Court of Milford, that William Weatherhead and Seth Hastings, on September 23, 1871, “ did unlawfully fish in that portion of a certain pond (commonly known as Mendon Pond) in which fishes are lawfully cultivated and artificially maintained” by the complainant and John Bliss, and without the permission of the complainant or Bliss, “ the proprietors of said fishes.” At the trial, on appeal, in the Superior Court, before Dewey, J„…

Relies on Commonwealth v. Vincent

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1872-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently December 1942

6 state decisions

2018721880189019001910192019301940decided

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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Wells, J.

¶1Most of the questions raised by this report have already been decided, in Commonwealth v. Vincent, 108 Mass. 441.

¶2The lease embraced the entire pond. The lessees are properly designated as the proprietors, notwithstanding the fact that other persons, associated with them by an independent arrangement among themselves, have an interest in the conduct of the enterprise. If the defendants had a license or authority from any of such associates, it was for them to make out their justification.

¶3Stocking the pond with a new species of fish, and closing the outlet with a wire screen, were acts sufficient to show an occupation for the purpose of artificially cultivating or maintaining fishes therein.

¶4The limitation to a portion of the pond “ not exceeding one tenth part thereof,” applies to the exclusive occupation by structures, “inclosures and appliances.” These must be “so placed as not to debar ingress to or egress from such pond at proper places.” The intermediate provision, “ but this shall not affect any public rights to such pond other than the right of fisheries,” must have been intended to apply to the whole pond, though not thus inclosed. This inference is required as well by the terms of the St. of 1869, e. 384, § 9, as by the fact that a lease of the whole pond is authorized and made, and is apparently necessary to the full accomplishment of the purpose in view. By necessary intendment, then, the public right of fishing is taken away in the whole pond, by the lease thereof. Section 19 does not limit the offence to the act of fishing within the “ inclosures ” provided for in section 9, in cases where the whole pond is leased; nor is the erection of such “ inclosures and appliances ” necessary in order to exclude the public right of fishing in the pond.

¶5We see no ground for the objection of a want of constitutional power in the Legislature to authorize a grant of this public right of fishing.

¶6No private right could be acquired by the exercise for fifty-five years of this public right by the defendant Hastings; or for more . than sixty years, by the inhabitants of Mendon.

¶7The defendants are properly joined. They were not only ir the same boat, but they must have concurred in act and purpose *179in entering the boat, moving it into the pond and placing it in the spot selected for the purpose of fishing.

¶8Judgment on the verdict.

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