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35 Me. 86

Cram v. Thissell

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

Decided July 1, 1852

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1852-07-01

On Exceptions from Nisi Prius, Tenney, J., presiding. Trover for saw-logs. The material facts appeared to be as follows: — Shaw, one of the defendants, obtained a permit to cut logs on a specified tract of land. He procured the other defendants, Thissell, Emery & Co., to furnish supplies for his lumbering operation, assigning to them the permit for their security.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1852-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently February 1922

1 federal appellate · 1 state decisions

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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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Wells, J.

¶1— It is contended in argument, that the plaintiffs had no title to the logs, for the conversion of which damages are claimed. But that objection is not made in the exceptions. It appears by them, that the counsel for the defendants contended, that the evidence did not disclose a joint conversion by all the defendants, and “ requested the Court to instruct the jury, that in order to make the defendants guilty of a joint conversion, their acts must have been cotemporaneous.” The Court instructed the jury, that there must be a joint conversion, and in substance, that the acts of the defendants for'the purpose of effecting a conversion'need not be cotemporaneous.

¶2All persons, who direct or assist in committing a trespass or the conversion of personal property, acting in concert, are liable jointly. Their acts and purposes may all tend to the same result, though they take place at different periods. Their acts may follow each other at intervals of time, but in the end produce the injury contemplated. The putting of marks upon the logs for the purpose of aiding the other defendants in their conversion, would render Shaw jointly liable with the other defendants, who caused them to be driven and manufactured. And there does not appear to be any error in the instructions.

¶3It is contended, that there was not sufficient evidence from which the jury could infer a joint conversion. But that question cannot be considered upon the exceptions, but only upon a motion for a new trial. Exceptions overruled.

Shepley, C. J. and Rice, J. concurred.Hathaway, J. debutante.
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