Brown v. Chase

Decided May 15, 1808

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1808-05-15

This writ of error was brought to reverse a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas for this county, in an action originally commenced before a justice of the peace, and carried, by appeal, to the Common Pleas. The original action was assumpsit, sued by the defendant in error against the plaintiff in error, as he was guardian of one George Fitzgerald, a spendthrift. The declaration was upon a promise of Fitzgerald.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1808-05-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 1898

9 state decisions

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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The Court

¶1reversed the judgment without argument, because the verdict does not find the issue joined, nor does the judgment follow the verdict. They also said that the action ought not to have been *383brought against the guardian, but against the spendthrift, who might defend by his guardian.

Rice, for the plaintiff in error,

¶2moved for costs.

¶3The Chief Justice observed that he saw no sufficient reason'why costs should not be given. But the practice having been uniform not to grant them where the judgment is reversed for error in law, it cannot be shaken without great consideration. And the motion was denied.

Vose for the defendant in error.