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70 Mass. 105

Phelps v. Stearns

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided September 15, 1855

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1855-09-15

Action of tort, commenced in the court of common pleas. The declaration contained two counts, the first of which averred that the defendant, being lawfully committed to jail upon an execution in favor of the plaintiff, did, on his examination before two justices of the peace and of the quorum upon his application to be admitted to take the poor debtors’ oath, in reply to certain interrogatories put by the plaintiff, pertinent to said examination, knowingly, wilfully and…

Relies on Smith v. Lewis

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1855-09-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently February 2019

1 district · 2 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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Metcalf, J.

¶1Not only is no precedent shown for the maintenance of this action, but there are numerous authorities, ancient and modern, that such an action cannot be maintained at common law. Jerom & Knights case, 1 Leon. 107. Damport v. Sympson, Cro. Eliz. 520, Owen, 158, and 2 Anderson, 47. Eyres v. Sedgewicke, Cro. Jac. 601, and 2 Rol. R. 197. Harding v. Bodman, Hut. 11. Dawling v. Wenman, 2 Show. 446. Bostwick v. Lewis, 2 Day, 447. Smith v. Lewis, 3 Johns. 157. Cunningham v. Brown, 18 Verm. 123. Dunlap v. Glidden, 31 Maine, 439. On these authorities, this demurrer must be sustained ; there being no statute provision for the action.

¶2The only case, in which our statutes have authorized an action against a person for false swearing, is that of one who is summoned as trustee in the process of foreign attachment. Rev. St« c. 109, § 78. And the only statute provisions, in a case like *107that set forth in the declaration now demurred to, are, that the debtor'may be convicted of perjury, and that, after such conviction, he shall have no benefit from the discharge which the justices granted him from his imprisonment. Rev. Sts. c. 98, §§ 14, 15.

¶3By the English Sts. of 5 & 28 Eliz., a party grieved by a judgment obtained by the perjury of witnesses might, after the reversal of the judgment, “ recover his damages against every such person as did procure such judgment against him, by action on the case.” 1 Gabbett Crim. Law, 806. 2 Russell on Crimes, (7th Amer. ed.) 604. A similar provision was made by our provincial St. 4 W. & M., in case of perjury in depositions given in a court of record. Anc. Chart. 241, 242. Neither of these statutes, even if now in force, would sustain the present action.

¶4Demurrer sustained.

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