Raymond Sanger Wilkins

The case involved a conservator petitioning the probate court under a new 1969 statute for permission to distribute $33,000 in gifts from the estate of an 87-year-old incapacitated ward to the conservator (the ward's daughter) and other relatives, in order to create an estate plan that would reduce income, estate, and inheritance taxes. The court addressed three reserved questions on whether the statute violated due process under the state and federal constitutions, whether it improperly delegated legislative power to the courts, and whether the conservator could receive gifts under the statute. The court answered no to the first two questions and yes to the third. Its reasoning emphasized the probate court's longstanding discretionary authority over the estates of wards, the statute's requirements that gifts be consistent with the ward's likely intentions and tax-minimization goals, and the absence of any constitutional bar to such managed distributions of excess assets.

family lawtaxespropertyprocedure

This case involved a landlord's summary process action to recover possession of rental premises at 13 Edmands Street in Somerville after serving a notice to quit on a tenant at will. The tenant appealed from a judgment for the landlord, arguing that leaving the notice at his last and usual place of abode (the demised premises) did not constitute valid "giving of notice" under G. L. c. 186, § 12, as he denied receipt and no one was shown to have received or been informed of it. The Superior Court found for the landlord, but the Supreme Judicial Court sustained the tenant's exceptions, holding that the requests for rulings should have been granted. The court reasoned that the statute requires the notice to be given to the other party without prescribing a method, and prior cases establish that merely leaving the notice at the tenant's residence without evidence of delivery to the tenant or a coresident providing presumptive notice is insufficient. The constable's return was not in the record, and the facts did not show any interaction that would support effective service.

propertyprocedure

The case involved claims by J. T. Healy & Son, Inc., a jewelry findings manufacturer, against former officers, directors, and employees including James A. Murphy and others who left to form a competing company, Murphy Co. The suit sought an injunction against use of alleged trade secrets, an accounting for compensation and damages, and constructive trusts on stock, while related actions claimed recovery of wages paid to a former employee and sought replevin of dies and items. The court affirmed the master's report as modified, holding that no trade secrets existed to bind the defendants, that former employees were free to use their general knowledge, experience, and skills without contracts restricting them, and that no records or customer lists had been taken. As a result, the equity bill was dismissed against several defendants, and judgments were entered for the defendants in the contract/tort and replevin actions.

business & regulatorypropertytorts & liability

The case involved a bankruptcy trustee seeking declaratory relief interpreting a 1966 conditional sale contract for equipment between a Massachusetts bankrupt company and an Indiana corporation, after the corporation repossessed the equipment. The Superior Court sustained the defendant's answer in abatement and plea to the jurisdiction and dismissed the bill. The court held that the Massachusetts long-arm statute (G. L. c. 223A) applied to the suit, was effective before the filing, covered equity proceedings, and permitted the method of mail service used, but that service was invalid because it failed to comply with requirements for serving designated officers or agents of a foreign corporation under G. L. c. 223, §§ 37-38. The court affirmed the jurisdictional ruling but reversed the dismissal to permit proper service.

procedure

The case involved claims by Reynolds Boat Company and the Reynolds family that the City of Haverhill was negligent in failing to maintain adequate water pressure and facilities for fire hydrants near their property, which prevented the fire department from containing a blaze and caused damage. The plaintiffs alleged that the city had promised or undertaken to provide sufficient water service for fire protection. The court sustained the city's demurrer and dismissed the action. The reasoning was that fire protection is a governmental function performed for the public benefit without creating any contract or tort liability to individual property owners, consistent with longstanding Massachusetts precedent distinguishing such functions from commercial ones; any policy change to impose liability would require legislative action.

torts & liability

The case involves two contract actions by Hub Associates seeking payment for architectural and engineering services on a shopping center in Leominster, Massachusetts, and a proposed warehouse in Connecticut. The defendants moved for summary judgment, claiming the contracts violated state laws (G.L. c. 112, §§ 60K, 60L) that regulate who may practice architecture, including requirements for supervision by registered architects and corporate officer qualifications. The Supreme Judicial Court declined to grant summary judgment or resolve the cases on the existing record, citing incomplete facts about the services performed, who performed them, whether the contracts were oral or written, and statutory compliance. It remanded the matters to the Superior Court for further proceedings, emphasizing that summary judgment requires no genuine issues of material fact and that inferences must favor the non-moving party.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case concerns the Town of Brookline's challenge to a 1969 order by the Metropolitan District Commission taking town parkland for highway reconstruction under statutes including St. 1956, c. 718, St. 1967, c. 616, and G. L. c. 92, § 35. The town argued the taking was invalid because it lacked required approvals from town officials, violated protections for parkland under earlier statutes like St. 1875, c. 185 and G. L. c. 79, § 5, and failed to meet standards for diverting public park use. The court held the taking invalid, declaring the order void in the equity suit and quashing it in the certiorari petition. The core reasoning was that Massachusetts law requires plain and explicit legislation, including specific identification of the parkland and evidence of legislative awareness of its existing use, to authorize diversion to an inconsistent public purpose, and the cited statutes did not satisfy this requirement.

property

The case involved a securities salesman suing his employer, a New York Stock Exchange member firm, for court-ordered discovery including records and depositions to support planned arbitration proceedings under exchange rules. The plaintiff alleged deceit based on false promises of institutional accounts upon joining the firm, which led to his job change and financial loss. The defendant demurred, arguing discovery was unavailable because it was not tied to any court proceeding. The court reversed the lower decree overruling the demurrer and sustained it, holding that equitable discovery jurisdiction applies only to court suits and not voluntary arbitration, as it would improperly interject judicial processes and hinder the arbitral proceedings.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

This case involved a lawsuit by Haverhill Gas Co. against general contractors for the unpaid balance of natural gas supplied to heat a housing project during construction in 1963-1964. Due to an internal error, the company initially billed only one-tenth of the gas used based on the meter's constant, and after discovering the mistake and issuing a corrected bill, the defendants refused to pay the difference of about $3,829. The jury found for the plaintiff, and the court overruled the defendants' exceptions to evidentiary rulings, jury instructions, and denied requests. The core reasoning was that gas rates are fixed by the Department of Public Utilities under G.L. c. 164, § 94, creating inflexible, quasi-statutory obligations that must be paid in full regardless of billing mistakes, similar to filed tariff rules for common carriers, and that meter-related claims under G.L. c. 164, § 115 did not alter this duty. The court held that the published rate controls and cannot be varied by the parties' actions or errors.

business & regulatory

In Ragucci v. Ragucci, a wife in Italy filed two petitions for separate support in Massachusetts Probate Court against her husband who resided in Everett. The husband had obtained a Nevada divorce decree after a brief six-week stay in that state for the purpose of filing suit, then immediately returned to Massachusetts and remarried; the Probate Court dismissed the petitions after finding the Nevada decree valid and entitled to full faith and credit. The Supreme Judicial Court reversed those dismissals, ruling that the husband never acquired a domicile in Nevada because his presence there was solely to obtain a quick divorce rather than to establish a permanent home. As a result, the Nevada court lacked jurisdiction, the divorce was invalid, and the parties remained married so the support petitions could proceed.

family lawprocedure

This case concerned the priority between a bank's attachment on real estate owned by Mary A. Sheehan (formerly McCormack) and two earlier mortgages on the same property granted by the Sheehans to defendants Karp and Dunderdale. The Colonial Bank & Trust Company filed an equity bill seeking a declaration that its 1966 attachment and subsequent levy took precedence over the mortgages. The trial court ruled that the mortgages had priority, and the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed. The core reasoning was that the mortgages complied with the recording statute by being recorded under the grantors' names at the time of conveyance, providing constructive notice, and a proper title search under both the maiden and married names would have revealed them.

property

The case involved a petition to vacate a default judgment entered against a nonresident defendant in a tort action arising from a motor vehicle accident in Massachusetts. The plaintiff had failed to answer interrogatories, leading to a nonsuit and judgment for the defendant. The plaintiff then filed a petition to vacate the judgment, which was served on the registrar of motor vehicles and later mailed to the defendant, but the petition was allowed before the defendant received proper notice. The court held that a petition to vacate judgment is an independent proceeding requiring adequate notice under G. L. c. 90, §§ 3A and 3C to satisfy due process, and that the statutory requirements for timely registered mail notice were not met. Accordingly, the court ruled that the defendant's motion to vacate the order granting the petition should have been allowed.

proceduretorts & liability

This tort case involved property damage to the plaintiffs' home from a 1965 gas explosion triggered when a contractor's excavation broke an underground gas service line installed by the defendant gas company in 1959. The trial judge directed verdicts for the defendant, and the Supreme Judicial Court overruled the plaintiffs' exceptions to evidentiary rulings excluding expert testimony. The court reasoned that the plaintiffs' expert could not establish negligence in the 1959 installation, that 1963-1965 engineering standards or bulletins had no relevance to the original installation date, and that the defendant had no duty to update or notify customers about later changes in installation methods. No state regulations governed the manner of gas line entry into buildings at the relevant times.

torts & liabilityprocedure

This case involved a mortgage foreclosure dispute where the borrower missed a quarterly installment payment due April 1, 1968, on a note secured by real estate. The lender notified the borrower of the default and right to accelerate the full unpaid balance of $197,500, accepted the late payment of $5,500 while stating it did not waive the default, and later attempted to accelerate and foreclose citing the April default plus removal of a small building. The trial court enjoined the foreclosure, and the appeals court affirmed, holding that acceptance of the overdue installment before electing acceleration operated as a waiver of the acceleration provision. The core reasoning was that the mortgage clause required a positive act to accelerate, and prior payment of the defaulted amount removed the basis for exercising that option.

property

The case involved a beneficiary suing an insurance company and its agent for negligent misrepresentation in tort after the company allegedly made a false statement to association officers and directors about extending reduced insurance coverage to members not actively at work, leading to denial of the plaintiff's claim upon his father's death. The trial court sustained the defendants' demurrers for failure to state a valid cause of action and denied leave to amend. On appeal, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed, holding that the claim did not fall within the narrow exception recognized in Craig v. Everett M. Brooks Co. because recovery would impose liability to an indeterminate class for an indeterminate time and amount, and noting additional defects such as missing allegations about the officers' and plaintiff's knowledge and intent regarding the specific coverage. The topics are torts & liability and procedure.

torts & liabilityprocedure

This case involved three consolidated tort actions for defamation brought by the plaintiff against Vallis for slander and against two newspapers for libel, based on statements accusing the plaintiff of impersonating a registry official and threatening to revoke Vallis's inspection license over a car repair bill. The court upheld the verdicts against Vallis and the Herald, finding the statements actionable as accusations of crime and that one Herald publication lacked privilege and was defamatory, while sustaining the Globe's exceptions because its report was a privileged fair account of a judicial hearing at the registry. The reasoning centered on the defamatory nature of the words, the jury's resolution of factual disputes including truth, and the application of reporting privileges to judicial proceedings without evidence of malice. The plaintiff was not deemed a public figure requiring proof of actual malice.

torts & liabilityfree speech

This case was a tort action for personal injuries from a 1964 motor vehicle collision, where the jury awarded the plaintiff $82,500 (remitted to $42,500) based in part on evidence of the defendant's negligence. The appeal concerned the trial judge's rulings allowing an actuary to answer a hypothetical question that assumed the plaintiff's earning capacity was reduced by $35 per week from 1966 to 2002, yielding a $36,000 figure for lost capacity. The court held that this was error because the assumed facts did not fairly represent the evidence presented: the plaintiff's main employment at Prudential was unaffected in the assumed manner, the secondary newspaper routes were minor and their termination was not shown to result from the accident, and testimony about pain or inability to do heavy work did not establish the specific weekly loss. The exceptions were sustained, requiring a new trial. The court did not reach the second evidentiary exception.

torts & liabilityprocedure

In Colby v. Carney Hospital, the plaintiff administrator sued a hospital in tort and contract for the death and conscious suffering of his intestate, with the hospital raising charitable immunity as a defense. The plaintiff demurred, arguing that the defense violated rights under the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and the U.S. Constitution, but the Superior Court overruled the demurrer and the plaintiff appealed. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the order, ruling that the charitable immunity doctrine is not repugnant to any constitutional provisions. Although the court had previously declined to abolish the doctrine in favor of legislative action, it warned that it would eliminate charitable immunity upon the next direct challenge, as only a few states still apply it.

civil rightsproceduretorts & liability

The case involved joint owners of land in Lowell who petitioned for a writ of mandamus against the Middlesex County treasurer to enforce payment of $140,474.71, the amount awarded after the county commissioners took their property by eminent domain under St. 1967, c. 542 for improving District Court facilities. The Superior Court ordered the treasurer to pay the sum plus interest, and the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed that ruling on appeal. The court held that the treasurer had no discretion to withhold payment based on a belief that the award was excessive, because the commissioners had complied with all legal formalities, there was no claim of fraud or illegality, and statutes such as G. L. c. 35, §§ 10 and 11 make the treasurer's duty to pay allowed claims ministerial and mandatory within ten days.

propertyprocedure

The case involved a defendant convicted in 1968 of assault and battery by dangerous weapon and armed assault with intent to rob, who later filed pro se motions to have his trial made subject to the stenographic transcription provisions of G. L. c. 278, §§ 33A-33G and for a free trial transcript due to his indigency. The trial judge denied both motions. The Supreme Judicial Court overruled the exception to the denial of the first motion, holding that the transcription procedure is discretionary for felonies other than murder or manslaughter and that denying it did not violate equal protection. However, the court on its own motion vacated the denial of the transcript request and ordered that a free transcript be provided, along with reasonable opportunity to prepare a bill of exceptions, to enable review of the preserved evidentiary exceptions.

criminal lawprocedure