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125 Mass. 560

Terry v. Sisson

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided November 7, 1878

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1878-11-07

Trustee process. The writ was dated November 29, 1876, and, as originally sued out, returnable to the Second District Court of Bristol on the second Monday of December, 1876, was against Sarah Sisson as defendant, and the Fall River Savings Bank as trustee. The officer’s return showed that service thereof was made on the trustee on December 1, and on the defendant on December 5,1876.

Relies on West v. Platt · Vermilyea v. Roberts

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1878-11-07

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently June 1935

15 state decisions

501878188018901900191019201930decided

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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Gray, C. J.

¶1It is well settled in this Commonwealth that the middle name or initial is an essential part of the name. Sarah Sisson and Sarah F. Sisson are therefore different names. Commonwealth v. Hall, 3 Pick. 262. Commonwealth v. Shearman, 11 Cush. 546. Commonwealth v. McAvoy, 16 Gray, 235. The misnomer could not indeed be taken advantage of by the principal defendant, who had been duly served and had suffered a default; and it might, as between her and the plaintiff, be amended, at the discretion of the court. Trull v. Howland, 10 Cush. 109. Crafts v. Sikes, 4 Gray, 194. Langmaid v. Puffer, 7 Gray, 378. But such an amendment cannot affect intervening rights of third persons. The only writ served upon the trustee was against Sarah Sisson. The trustee, having no funds belonging to any person of that name, and acting, so far as appears, in good faith and with no notice or knowledge that the person intended to be sued was Sarah F. Sisson, lawfully paid over to the latter the funds in its hands belonging to her, and cannot by the subsequent amendment of the writ be made liable to pay the same over again to the plaintiff.s

¶2The cases, on which the counsel for the plaintiff relies, contain no adjudication inconsistent with this conclusion, although expressions in some of the opinions might, apart from the facts to which they applied, seem to countenance his position. In Langmaidv. Puffer, above cited, the question arose between the plaintiff and defendant. In Wight v. Hale, 2 Cush. 486, and in West v. Platt, 116 Mass. 308, the writ was sued out by oi *562against two partners, described and clearly identified by the true names of the partnership and of one partner, although there was a clerical error or omission in the name of the other partner. In Vermilyea v. Roberts, 103 Mass. 410, the trustee’s answers admitted that he still held the funds after the amendment of the writ, so that he was primá facie chargeable; and the mere fact that he had, before the amendment, received a copy of an assignment of the funds, without further proof of its existence or validity, did not show, as matter of law, that the court below erred in charging him. Richards v. Smith, 9 Gray, 315. Lane v. Felt, 7 Gray, 491. Judgment affirmed.

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