Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

145 Mass. 403

Commonwealth v. Carroll

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided January 2, 1888

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1888-01-02

Complaint, under the Pub. Sts. e. 112, § 206, by William F. Batchelder, to the Justice of the Third District Court of Eastern Middlesex, alleging that the defendant, on February 20, 1887, at Cambridge, “ wilfully did throw a certain missile, to wit, a stone, at a certain street railway car of the property of the Cambridge Railroad Company, a corporation duly established by law.” In the Superior Court, on appeal, before the jury were empanelled, the defendant moved to quash…

Relies on Commonwealth v. Bakeman

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1888-01-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently March 1974

4 state decisions

201888189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

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 →

Holmes, J.

¶11. The motion, to quash was rightly overruled': Any one may make a complaint who is competent to make oath to it. The offence is alleged to have been committed at Cambridge, and therefore is shown to be within the jurisdiction of the court. St. 1882, c. 233. In the opinion of a majority of the court, the Pub. Sts. c. 112, § 206, must be construed to punish throwing a missile at a car whether in use or not* and therefore it was unnecessary to allege that the car was in use at the' time. It was also unnecessary to describe the car more particularly, and if there had been any defect in this respect, or in respect of the place, it would have been a defect of form, which could not be objected to for the first time in the Superior Court. Pub. Sts. e. 214, § 25.

¶22. The evidence of the existence of the corporation was competent. Commonwealth v. Bakeman, 105 Mass. 53, 60. Pub. Sts. a. 169, §§ 68, 69. The certificate of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, provided for in the Pub. Sts. o. 106, §§ 21, 22, is for corporations established under that chapter, or taking advantage of its provisions. It was also competent to prove the ownership of the car by the testimony of'one witness describing its particular marks, coupled with that of another that the car bearing those marks belonged to the company. Moreover, possession was enough. Pub. Sts. c. 214, § 14.

¶33. The instructions requested were given in substance, so far as correct and material. The word “ stone ” did not need definition. , Exceptions overruled.

/145/mass/403 · .json · Public domain