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125 Mass. 577

Coker v. Ropes

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided November 29, 1878

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1878-11-29

Contract to recover one year’s salary at $2000, upon an agreement under seal, by the terms of which the plaintiff was to act as the agent of the defendant at port or ports to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, in the Zanzibar trade.

Relies on Holmes v. Hunt · Peru Steel & Iron Co. v. Whipple File & Steel Manufacturing Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1878-11-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently January 1940

4 state decisions

2018781880189019001910192019301940decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Gray, C. J.

¶1The ruling as to the effect of the auditor’s report conformed to the well settled law. An auditor, for the purpose of passing upon the matter referred to him, must necessarily construe any contract the construction of which is involved in such determination; his views of the law being, of course, subject to revision by the court, and his findings of fact to revision by the jury. Peru Co. v. Whipple Manuf. Co. 109 Mass. 464. Holmes v. Hunt, 122 Mass. 505.

¶2It was within the discretion of the presiding judge to exclude the general question put to the plaintiff by his counsel, as asking for a mere repetition of his previous testimony.

¶3There were no facts in the case to call for the last instruction requested; and the instructions given were correct and sufficient, and in accordance with the cases on which the plaintiff relied at the argument. Forrestier v. Bordman, 1 Story, 43. Greenleaf v. Moody, 13 Allen, 363. Exceptions overruled.

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