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15 Mass. 134

Cutts v. Spring

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1818-05-15

Trespass quare clausum fregit, and for cutting timber on a tract of land, in Hiram, in the county of Oxford. On the general issue joined, trial was had at the last October term, before Thatcher, J. The plaintiffs proved the cutting of the trees on the land described, their title to which they derived as follows: In 1771, the government of this then province granted to one Benjamin Prescott a certain tract of land, which he caused to be surveyed, and upon which he entered.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1818-05-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 1944

9 state decisions

3018181820183018401850186018701880189019001910192019301940decided

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 grant of the government to B. Prescott in *1271771, and his surveying, fixing the bounds, and entering upon the land, gave him a seisin, although he included more land within his location than his grant conveyed to him. His title descended, with the possession, to his son, and the deed of this latter conveyed t.he seisin to the plaintiffs in 1809.

¶2It is wholly immaterial to the defendants whether the location covered more land than the terms of the grant would warrant. The plaintiffs were seised as well as possessed, in regard to every one but the commonwealth — who might, or might not, reclaim part of the land located, as not conveyed.

¶3The action, therefore, is rightly brought, and the value of the trees is the proper measure of the damages. For the commonwealth has a right to call the plaintiffs to account, by a suit for the mesne profits, or in some other way; and as the defendants were wrong-doers to the plaintiffs, these latter ought to be in possession of the value of the trees, as a fund to meet the claim of the commonwealth. If not called upon, they have a right to keep the money for their own use, being accountable to none but the commonwealth. (a)

¶4Judgment on the verdict.

¶5 Vide Harper vs Charlesworth, 4 B. & Cr. 574. — Dyson vs. Cottick, 5 B. & A. 602.

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