Carter v. Towne
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort for carelessly and unlawfully selling to the plaintiff, a child eight years old, two pounds of gunpowder, which the plaintiff fired off and was thereby injured. After this court had overruled the demurrer to the declaration, as reported 98 Mass. 567, the defendants filed an answer, denying each and every allegation in the declaration, and alleging that, if the sale was made to the plaintiff, it was made with the- knowledge and assent of the plaintiff’s father.
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Tort for carelessly and unlawfully selling to the plaintiff, a child eight years old, two pounds of gunpowder, which the plaintiff fired off and was thereby injured. After this court had overruled the demurrer to the declaration, as reported 98 Mass. 567, the defendants filed an answer, denying each and every allegation in the declaration, and alleging that, if the sale was made to the plaintiff, it was made with the- knowledge and assent of the plaintiff’s father. At the trial in the superior court, before Putnam, J., the plaintiff testified that he became nine years old in March 1867, and…
1Opinion of the CourtGuay, J.
The testimony introduced for the plaintiff at the trial discloses quite a different case from that alleged in the declaration, which was held sufficient when the case was before us on the demurrer; and shows that the gunpowder sold by the defendants to the plaintiff had been in the legal custody and control of the plaintiff’s parents, or, in their absence, of his aunt, for more than a week before the use of the gunpowder by which he *509was injured. Under these circumstances, that injury was not the direct or proximate, the natural or probable, consequence of the defendants’ act; and the jury…
2Cited by29 opinions
- Carter v. Yardley & Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1946
- Stone v. Boston & Albany RailroadMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1898
- Neff Lumber Co. v. First National BankOhio Supreme Court · 1930
- Washington & Georgetown Railroad v. HickeySupreme Court of the United States · 1897
- Wellington v. Downer Kerosene Oil Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1870
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