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138 Mass. 570

Walker v. Soule

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided February 27, 1885

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1885-02-27

Tort. The declaration was as follows: “ And the plaintiff says that the defendant, in the year 1861, was the duly qualified administrator of the estate of Joseph Pierce, deceased; that he falsely and fraudulently represented to the plaintiff that, as said administrator, he was lawfully authorized, licensed, and empowered by the Probate Court of said county to sell the real estate of said deceased; that by the defendant’s said false representation, and fraudulent concealment…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1885-02-27

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 1996

1 federal appellate · 8 state decisions

20188518901900191019201930194019501960197019801990decided

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 →

W. Allen, J.

¶1The action was begun more than twenty years after the cause of action accrued, but within six years after its discovery by the plaintiff. The only question is whether there was any evidence that the defendant fraudulently concealed the cause of action from the knowledge of the plaintiff, within the meaning of the Pub. Sts. c. 197, § 14.

¶2There was no evidence of anything done by the defendant after the cause of action accrued, and no evidence of any fraudulent act of his, except in making the representations which constitute the cause of action. The representations alleged are that the defendant was licensed by the Probate Court to sell the real estate of his intestate; that he had good right to sell it; that the title to it was good; and that the deed, a copy of which was in evidence, was in proper form, and sufficient to pass the *572property. The only false representations were as to the contents of public records, which the plaintiff had full opportunity to examine. If such representations constitute a cause of action, they are not sufficient to prove a subsequent fraudulent concealment of it from the knowledge of the plaintiff. Nudd v. Hamblin, 8 Allen, 130. Judgment for the defendant.

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