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110 Mass. 35

Smith v. Pierce

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided September 15, 1872

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1872-09-15

Tort for breaking and entering the plaintiff’s close. Trial in the Superior Court, before Brigham, C. J. The defendant introduced evidence tending to show “ that he let the plaintiff have a piano to use for an indefinite time, upon a certain agreed rent, and that the rent was not paid as promised.” The plaintiff introduced evidence tending to show “ that he did not hire the piano, but purchased it of the defendant, and had made him payments thereon.” It appeared that in…

Relies on McLeod v. Jones

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1872-09-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently April 1969

6 state decisions

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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.

¶1The case of McLeod v. Jones, 105 Mass. 403, decides that title to personal property and right of present possession do not alone, as matter of law, confer a legal right or license to enter the close of another for the purpose of taking possession and removing it.

¶2So far as the court, in this case, adopted the second proposition of the defendant’s prayers, the instructions were too favorable to him. A hiring of personal property does not of itself confer upon the bailor a license to enter the premises of' the bailee to retake it, upon the termination of the bailment in any mode. Without proof of the terms and circumstances of the bailment, non con-stat that such was the contract of the parties; and if not to be derived from their contract, a license would not result from wrongful conduct, such as is suggested in the defendant’s proposition.

¶3*38But adopting this proposition, as the court appears to have done, the license so given could not be revoked; and the defendant would not become a trespasser, after being admitted into the house, by remaining for the purpose of removing the piano, although opposed ; nor by proceeding, without violence, to another room and removing the piano, although forbidden to do so.

¶4It is not clear, from the exceptions, whether the modifications, with which the court gave the instructions prayed for, were intended to apply to them all, or only to the last one. Apparently the judge had in mind only the permission to enter, given by the person in charge of the house, who admitted the defendant. If it was intended or understood that the second proposition of the defendant’s prayers was to be so modified, then the instructions were erroneous in that respect.

¶5We do not decide the case upon this point, it being sufficient to indicate the distinction; as a new trial will be necessary on account of the other instruction. That instruction is as follows: “ If the defendant made an entry into the plaintiff’s house, permitted or unopposed, and, having thus entered, did acts in relation to personal property therein, which were wrongful, and were opposed by the person in keeping of the house, he was a trespasser upon the house.”

¶6This proposition is applicable only to an authority or license given by law. One who abuses a license by contract or permission of the owner of land, by taking advantage of it to do some wrongful act to personal property, does not thereby become a trespasser ah initia. Applied to this case, the instruction is wrong. The action is for trespass to the close, and not for a tort in respect to personal property. Exceptions sustained.

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