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213 Mass. 68

Commonwealth v. Rodziewicz

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided October 19, 1912

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1912-10-19

Indictment, found and returned on May 15, 1912, for wilfully and maliciously burning a building, a part of which was occupied by the defendant. At the trial in the Superior Court before Hall, J., the Commonwealth called as a witness a member of the State police who in the course of his duty had had a large experience in investigating fires and had testified many times as an expert in fire cases.

Relies on Commonwealth v. Sturtivant · Higgins v. Dewey · Partelow v. Newton & Boston Street Railway Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1912-10-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently February 1980

1 district · 7 state decisions

3019121920193019401950196019701980decided

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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Loring, J.

¶1The testimony of the witness as to the conclusions drawn by him from what he saw was not admissible as the conclusions made by an ordinary witness from observation of things which cannot be reproduced and therefore although involving opinion admitted ex necessitate, as to which see Commonwealth v. Sturtivant, 117 Mass. 122, 133; Beverley v. Boston Elevated Railway, 194 Mass. 450; Partelow v. Newton & Boston Street Railway, 196 Mass. 24; Jenkins v. Weston, 200 Mass. 488.

¶2Doubtless there are cases where the effect of some kinds of fire upon some kinds of material substance is not a matter of ordinary experience or knowledge such as men in general understand and comprehend. But the kind of fire pr fires which char ordinary mop-boards, sheathing and partitions and burn holes through an ordinary wooden floor without any charring or burning between *70is not one of them. See in this connection State v. Watson, 65 Maine, 74; Wood v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, 40 Wis. 582; Higgins v. Dewey, 107 Mass. 494; Lyman v. State Mutual Fire Ins. Co. 14 Allen, 329; Fireman’s Ins. Co. v. J. H. Mohlman Co. 33 C. C. A. 347; 91 Fed. Rep. 85.

¶3The entry must be

¶4Exceptions sustained.

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