Legal Opinion

Simmons v. New Bedford, Vineyard & Nantucket Steamboat Co.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided October 15, 1868PublishedCited by 2 opinions

Tort for injuries sustained by the plaintiff while a passenger on board of the defendants’ steamboat. At the new tidal in the superior court, before Reed, J., after the decision reported 97 Mass. 361, evidence was introduced showing substantially as at the former trial that on August 12, 1865, the plaintiff was a passenger on a steamboat, which was owned by the defendants and managed and navigated by their servants, for a trip from New Bedford to Martha’s Vineyard, to attend…

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Tort for injuries sustained by the plaintiff while a passenger on board of the defendants’ steamboat. At the new tidal in the superior court, before Reed, J., after the decision reported 97 Mass. 361, evidence was introduced showing substantially as at the former trial that on August 12, 1865, the plaintiff was a passenger on a steamboat, which was owned by the defendants and managed and navigated by their servants, for a trip from New Bedford to Martha’s Vineyard, to attend a religious camp-meeting; that the steamboat was crowded, some of the witnesses estimating the number of passengers as…

1Opinion of the CourtFoster, J.

1. When this cause was previously before the court, we held that the habit of the passengers to get into the starboard boat was inadmissible to show that a similar use of the larboard boat, the falling of which caused the accident, was known to or permitted by the officers of the steamboat. At the last trial, the plaintiff asked one of his witnesses whether he saw any passenger in the starboard boat on the trip when the accident occurred. This question was objected to by the defendants, but admitted by the court “ as tending to show the crowded state of the boat.” We cannot perceive that it…

2Cases cited1 opinion

  1. Greene v. . WhiteNew York Court of Appeals · 1867

3Cited by2 opinions

  1. Bryant v. RichMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1870
  2. Nichols v. Middlesex RailroadMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1871

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