Byron v. Crippen

Decided October 15, 1855

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1855-10-15

Replevin of a horse. At the trial in the court of common pleas, there was evidence tending to show that the defendant, a field driver of Grafton, found the plaintiff’s horse going at large in the highway, without a keeper, and took him up and drove him to the pound keeper’s house, which was sixty or eighty rods from the town pound, and, not finding the pound keeper at home, put the horse into his barn, and requested his wife to tell her husband, when he returned, to put the…

Decided 1855-10-15

Thomas, J.

¶1We think the instructions of the court below wrere correct. To “ forthwith impound ” is to impound without unnecessary delay. The act of impounding by the field driver does not require that he should open or close the gate. The *314pound is under the care and in the custody of a keeper e.ected for the purpose. Rev. Sts. c. 19, §§ 20, 21.

¶2The field driver, it- is plain, was not responsible for the act of the pound keeper in removing the horse from the pound without bis direction or consent.

¶3Exceptions overruled.