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6 Mass. 331

Lienow v. Ellis

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1810-03-15

<p>Where an action of covenant broken is founded on privity of contract between the parties, their executors or administrators, it is transitory ; but when it is founded on privity of estate, it is local, and must be sued in the county where the land lies.</p>

Cited in Abbott (1879)’s definition of “Transitory Action”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1810-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently May 1977

9 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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Parsons, C. J.

¶1It is the opinipn of the Court that the exception urged by the counsel for the defendant must prevail. When the action of covenant is founded on privity of contract between the parties, their executors or administrators, it is transitory, and may be sued as a transitory action ; but when it is founded on privity of estate, the action is then local, and must be sued in the county where the land lies. In the case before us, if the plaintiff can maintain an action of covenant upon the covenant on which he declares, he must maintain it as assignee of Bartlet, by virtue of his conveyance of the land; and his privity is a privity of estate, and not of contract.

¶2After this opinion was delivered, the plaintiff had leave to discontinue, upon payment of costs.

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