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48 N.C. 131

Bell v. . Hansley

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided December 5, 1855

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1855-12-05

Tins was an action of trespass, assault and battery, tried before Ellis, Judge, at the Fall Term, 1855, of New Hanover Superior Court. The plaintiff proved the assaiilt and battery; and there was evidence tending to show a mutual affray and fighting by consent. The defendant called upon his Honor to instruct the jury, ^ that if the parties mutually assented to, and participated in, a | breach of the peace, the plaintiff could not recover.

Cited in Bouvier (1914)’s definition of “Prizefight”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Yerdict for the plaintiff · Decided 1855-12-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently November 1982

1 federal appellate · 5 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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Nash, C. J.

¶1 This case presents the question, whether, when two men fight together* thereby committing an affray, either is guilty of an assault and battery upon the other. Jus *132 tice Puller in liis Nisi Prius, at page 16, says, each does commit an assault and battery upon the other, and that each can maintain an action for it. He refers to a case at Abingdon, Boulter v. Clark, when Serjeant Hayward appeared for the defendant, and offered to prove that the parties fought by consent, and insisted, that this, under the maxim volenti non fit wyjtvria, applied. Parker, Chief Baron, denied it, and said, “ the fighting being unlawful, the consent of the plaintiff to fight would be no bar to his action, and that he was entitled to a verdict.” Mr. Stephens in his Nisi Prius, 211, lays down the same doctrine—“ If two men engage in a boxing-match, an action can be sustained by ¡either of them against the other, if an assault be made; because the act of boxing is unlawful, and the consent of the parties to fight cannot excuse the injury.”

Per Curiam.

¶2 Judgment affirmed.

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