Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

133 Mass. 554

Boyce v. Wheeler

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided November 25, 1882

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1882-11-25

<p>A refusal of the Superior Court to confirm and to render judgment upon the report of commissioners appointed to make partition, on the ground that it is invalid in law, is an interlocutory and not a final decision, and exceptions thereto are prematurely entered in this court.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“rule of law is well settled that, in cases pending in the Superior Court, questions of law arising therein cannot be entered and heard in this court, upon appeal or exceptions, until after final judgment in the Superior Court”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Owens v. City of Malden

Relies on West v. Platt · Gifford v. Rockett · Kellogg v. Kimball

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1882-11-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently October 2023

8 state decisions

20188218901900191019201930194019501960197019801990200020102020decided

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 →

Morton, C. J.

¶1The rule of law is well settled that, in cases pending in the Superior Court, questions of law arising therein cannot be entered and heard in this court, upon appeal or exceptions, until after final judgment in the Superior Court. Until such final judgment, this court has no jurisdiction to hear and determine the questions of law. Platt v. Justices of the Superior Court, 124 Mass. 353. Kellogg v. Kimball, 122 Mass. 163. Gifford v. Rockett, 119 Mass. 71. Harding v. Pratt, 119 Mass. 188. Crompton Carpet Co. v. Worcester, 119 Mass. 375. Hogan v. Ward, 117 Mass. 67. Marshall v. Merritt, 13 Allen, 274.

¶2This rule applies to the case at bar. It is a petition for partition, upon which judgment for partition was rendered at a former term, and commissioners to make partition were *555appointed. The commissioners made their report, and the Superior Court refused to confirm the report and to render judgment upon it, upon the ground that it was invalid in law. To this ruling of the court the respondents alleged exceptions. There has been no final judgment in the case, and it is not ripe for a final judgment. If this court were to hold that the ruling was wrong, no final judgment could be ordered or entered. The Superior Court might confirm the report and order judgment thereon, or it might for sufficient cause refuse to confirm it, and recommit the matter to the same or other commissioners. The decision of the court to which exception was taken was an interlocutory decision, and therefore the exceptions in this ease have been prematurely entered in this court.

C. P. Thompson, (J. F. Hannan with him,) for the respondents.S. B. Ives, Jr., for the petitioner.

¶3Exceptions dismissed.

/133/mass/554 · .json · Public domain