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131 Mass. 574

Hatch v. Fuller

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided November 21, 1881

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1881-11-21

Tort for seduction. Writ dated March 2, 1880. The declaration was as follows: “ And the plaintiff says that the defendant assaulted, debauched and carnally knew one Cora Hatch, then and from thence hitherto the servant of the plaintiff, whereby the said Cora Hatch became sick and unable to render service to the plaintiff so being her master as aforesaid, and thereby the plaintiff was deprived of the services of his said servant.” Answer, a general denial.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1881-11-21

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently March 1906

11 state decisions

50188118901900decided

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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By the Court.

¶1The evidence objected to was rightly admitted. The complaints of pain do not appear to have been staremems of fact or narrations of past occurrences, but only such exclamations or expressions as usually and naturally accompany, and manifest the existence of, present pain or illness. Bacon v. Charlton, 7 Cush. 581. 1 Greenl. Ev. § 102. The fact that some of these complaints were made since the date of the writ affected their weight only, and not their competency. Barber v. Merriam, 11 Allen, 322. The plaintiff was entitled to recover in this action all the damages, whether before or after the date of the writ, resulting from the injury sued for.

¶2The instructions requested were rightly refused. There was some evidence for the jury that the plaintiff’s daughter and servant had been debauched by the defendant, and thereby rendered less able to perform services for the plaintiff; whether it was sufficient was a question of fact, and not of law. The *577foundation of the action is the loss of service; and the injury to the plaintiff’s feelings as a father is but one element in computing the damages, and need not be specially alleged in the. declaration. Phillips v. Hoyle, 4 Gray, 568.

¶3Exceptions overruled.

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