¶1The jury were instructed that, if the defendant was proprietor of the saloon, and made either of the two illegal sales that were testified to, they must return a verdict of guilty. This went too far. For, even if a single sale was sufficient evidence to warrant a conviction on this complaint, it certainly did not of itself constitute the offence set forth, or amount to more *500than evidence for the jury on which they might convict. A building cannot be said to be “ used ” for the illegal sale of intoxicating liquors, within the meaning of the Pub. Sts. c. 101, § 6, which makes it a nuisance, nor can the proprietor be said to “ keep or maintain such common nuisance ” within § 7, on the strength of a single casual sale, made without premeditation, in the course of a lawful business. Not only do the words “ used ” and “ keep or maintain ” import a certain degree of permanence, but the same idea is usually a part of the conception of a nuisance. • Exceptions sustained.
138 Mass. 498
Commonwealth v. Patterson
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Decided January 7, 1885
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1885-01-07
Complaint to the Third District Court of Eastern Middlesex, for keeping and maintaining a common nuisance, to wit, a certain tenement in Cambridge, used for the illegal sale and illegal keeping of intoxicating liquors, on January 1,1884, and on divers other days and times between that day and May 8, 1884.
Key passage — most relied on by later courts
““The proprietor of a building cannot be said to ‘keep or maintain’ a common nuisance, within the meaning of Pub. St. c. 101. § 6, making a building used for the sale of intoxicating liquors a nuisance, on the strength of a single casual sale, made without premeditation in the course of a lawful business. The words ‘keep or maintain’ import a certain degree of permanence.””
quoted by 2 later decisions, including United States v. Dowling, English v. Virginia Probation & Parole Board
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1885-01-07
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently December 2008 · most notably Tenement House Department v. . McDevitt (1915), Lincoln v. City of Boston (1889)
1 federal appellate · 1 district · 22 state decisions
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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