Chabot v. Davis

Decided December 3, 1907

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · decided 1907-12-03

Trespass, for assault. Defence, justification on the ground of self-defence against an attack by the plaintiff. Trial by jury and verdict for the defendant. Transferred from the May term, 190T, of the superior court by Peaslee, J. The plaintiff excepted to a refusal to charge the jury as follows: To sustain a plea of self-defence, the defendant must show either that he retreated to avoid the encounter, or that retreat was impossible or was attended with great danger.

Relies on Aldrich v. Wright · Brown v. Brown · Dole v. Erskine

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1907-12-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently September 1973

5 state decisions

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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Chase, J.

¶1 Whether, if the defendant had killed the plaintiff and this action was an indictment for the homicide, the charge requested would be proper (4 Bl. Com. 184, 185; 2 Bish. Cr. Law, s. 548, et seq.) need not be considered; but that the plaintiff was not entitled to the charge in the present action is elementary law. It was one of the defendant’s “ natural, essential, and inherent ” rights to do whatever apparently was reasonably necessary to be done, to repel the plaintiff’s attack. Dole v. Erskine, 35 N. H. 503; Towle v. Blake, 48 N. H. 92; Aldrich v. Wright, 53 N. H. 398. Whether his acts were within the requirements of reasonable necessity, under the circumstances, was a question of fact, which presumably was properly submitted to the jury for decision.

¶2 Exception overruled.

All concurred.