¶1In order to maintain his action, it was incumbent on the plaintiff to prove, not only that the defendant was negligent, but that the loss occurred by reason of his neglect. Maynard v. Buck, 100 Mass. 40, 48. It is manifest from the bill of exceptions that the point of controversy before the jury was whether the door of the building where the carriage was kept was.opened because it was improperly and insufficiently fastened, or whether, being properly and reasonably secured, it was violently forced open by a thief. In other words the question was whether the loss was occasioned by the defendant’s negligence; or by an act of violence for which he was not responsible. As bearing upon this question, the plaintiff had the benefit of all evidence of habitual or frequent negligence on the part of the defendant at or near the time of the loss, and he has no ground of complaint against the qualification added by the presiding judge. We must infer from the verdict, that the jury found that the negligence of the defendant did not contribute to the loss. Exceptions overruled.
120 Mass. 33
Roberts v. Gurney
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Decided March 2, 1876
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1876-03-02
Contract against a warehouseman, for the value of a carriage stored with him, and alleged by him to have been stolen on June 6, 1873.
Relies on Maynard v. Buck
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1876-03-02
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently February 1923
1 federal appellate · 3 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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