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73 N.H. 225

60 A 686

Hodsdon v. Kennett

Supreme Court of New Hampshire

Decided March 7, 1905

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · decided 1905-03-07

Trespass quare clausum. Trial by the court. Transferred from the June term, 1904, of the superior court by Stone, J. About May 20, 1908, John W. Sanborn and the plaintiff were the owners in common of a lumber lot. On that date Sanborn sold the wood and timber thereon to the defendants Kennett and Weeks for $350 and received that sum from them. The plaintiff know of the sale at the time it was made, but remained silent.

Relies on Kingsley v. Holbrook · Houston v. Laffee · Howe v. Batchelder

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1905-03-07

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently June 1972

4 state decisions

2019051910192019301940195019601970decided

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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Walker, J.

¶1 The attempted sale of the wood and timber on the lot by Sanborn to Kennett and Weeks, even if assented to by his co-tenant Hodsdon, had no other effect than to confer upon the vendees a license to enter upon the lot and cut and remove the growth, since the subject-matter of the sale was an interest in real estate, which cannot be conveyed by parol. Kingsley v. Holbrook, 45 N. H. 313; Howe v. Batchelder, 49 N. H. 204; Reid v. McQuesten, 61 N. H. 421; Dudley v. Foote, 63 N. H. 57; Lamprey v. Eastman, 68 N. H. 198. Such a license may be revoked at any time; and acts done upon the land by the licensee after revocation, and without other rightful authority, render him liable as a trespasser. Marston v. Gale, 24 N. H. 176; Houston v. Laffee, 46 N. H. 505; Batchelder v. Hibbard, 58 N. H. 269; Quimby v. Straw, *226 71 N. H. 160. By the death of Sanborn, whatever authority he gave the licensees to enter upon the land and cut the timber was revoked (Blaisdell v. Railroad, 51 N. H. 483; Hallett v. Parker, 68 N. H. 598, 600), and in two or three days thereafter the plaintiff exercised his right of revocation by expressly notifying them not to cut the wood and timber. Their permissive right then ceased, and they became trespassers in reference to their acts subsequently done upon the land. As the case is understood, those acts consisted in clearing the lot, for which the plaintiff seeks to recover. According to the provision of the case, the plaintiff is entitled to judgment for $350.

¶2 Qase discharged.

All concurred.
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