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128 Mass. 585

Jones v. Hoey

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1880-06-29

Contract upon a promissory note, dated February 7, 1878, signed by William A. Hoey, payable to the order of, and indorsed by, the defendant. Trial in the Superior Court, before Bacon, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, in substance as follows : The note was given in payment of a quantity of leaf tobacco sold and delivered by the plaintiff to William A. Hoey at the date of the note.

Relies on Robinson v. United States · Partridge v. Forsyth · Miller v. Stevens

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1880-06-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently January 1936

1 federal appellate · 7 state decisions

30188018901900191019201930decided

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.

¶1The instruction given was correct. If the tobacco was sold by sample and by weight, without more' specific agreement, evidence of a general usage was admissible to show that the weight was to be computed as previously ascertained at the time of packing and marked on the cases, and not by the actual weight at the time of the sale. Bottomley v. Forbes, 6 Scott, 866; S. C. 5 Bing. N. C. 121. Barry v. Bennett, 7 Met. 354. Miller v. Stevens, 100 Mass. 518. The Gen. Sts. c. 51, § 17, cited for the defendant, providing that sales of goods by the hundredweight shall be construed to mean by the net weight, or one hundred pounds, and not by the gross weight, or *587one hundred and twelve pounds, contain nothing inconsistent with this.

¶2Nothwithstanding the dictum in Boardman v. Spooner, 13 Allen, 353, 359, there can be no doubt, at the present day, that the circumstance that but one witness testifies to a usage is important only as bearing upon the credibility and satisfactoriness of his testimony in point of fact, and .does not affect its competency or its sufficiency as matter of law. Parrott v. Thacher, 9 Pick. 426. Vail v. Rice, 1 Selden, 155. Partridge v. Forsyth, 29 Ala. 200. Robinson v. United States, 13 Wall. 363.

¶3Exceptions overruled.

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