Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

99 Mass. 175

Ross v. Harper

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1868-03-15

<p>It is no ground for reversing or modifying a decree enjoining the plaintiff in an action a! law, in which he has obtained a verdict, from further prosecuting the same, that it provides that in such action neither party shall recover costs.</p> <p>In an action at law neither party has a legal claim for costs against the other until after a final judgment.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1868-03-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently April 1930

5 state decisions

3018681870188018901900191019201930decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

By the Court.

¶1This is a simple appeal from a final decree in a suit in equity, without any assignment of reasons of appeal, and without any report of evidence or of facts found by the judge who heard the cause, and made the decree. There is nothing therefore before us except to see whether the decree is justified by the record. We find no error upon the record, and no reason for altering the decree.

¶2The decree enjoins the defendant from further prosecuting a .¿ult at law. The defendant objects that this should not be done, because he has obtained a verdict in the suit at law upon grounds to which there were no legal exceptions. But the very foundation of the suit in equity is, that the plaintiff has equitable rights of which he could not avail himself in defence of an action at law; that the prosecution of the suit at law, is inequitable; and that a court of equity should interfere for his protection.

¶3The defendant at the hearing says that he should be content to have the decree affirmed if he could have his costs paid in the action at law. But the judge who heard the case has decided that the suit at law could not be prosecuted consistently with the equitable rights of the plaintiff in this suit, and must have based his decree upon that finding. It follows that the costs which this defendant incurred in the action at law were inequitably incurred, by pursuing the action in violation of the equitable right of the other party.

¶4*177But an equally strong objection to his claim is this, that there are no costs which the law recognizes as existing, and the basis of a legal claim, by one party in an action at law against another,.until there is a final judgment entered thereupon.

¶5 Decree affirmed ; with costs of the appeal for the plaintiff.

/99/mass/175 · .json · Public domain