Dickinson v. Barber
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
This was an action of slander. The declaration states that on the 1st of September, 1806, the defendant said that the plaintiff had been criminally intimate with the defendant’s wife, and that he made similar declarations on the 30th of November, 1806, and on the 1st and 30th of March, 1808. The action was tried, April term, 1811, before Sedgwick J., when a verdict was found for the plaintiff, and his damages assessed at three hundred dollars.
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This was an action of slander. The declaration states that on the 1st of September, 1806, the defendant said that the plaintiff had been criminally intimate with the defendant’s wife, and that he made similar declarations on the 30th of November, 1806, and on the 1st and 30th of March, 1808. The action was tried, April term, 1811, before Sedgwick J., when a verdict was found for the plaintiff, and his damages assessed at three hundred dollars. At the trial, the plaintiff having given evidence to prove the speaking of the words charged, the defendant, by his guardian thereto admitted, having…
1Opinion of the Court
The Court
observed that the exceptions were to two decisions of the judge who presided in the trial of this cause. The first was, that he rejected evidence which would have gone to show symptoms of insanity after the summer, which succeeded the speaking the words charged. In this they held the conduct of the judge to be correct. Facts arising so long after could have little or no tendency to show the actual state of the defendant’s mind at the time he spoke the words : while they might, nevertheless, produce an improper effect on the minds of jurors.
The rejection of the depositions was also…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Poole v. RichardsonMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1807
3Cited by34 opinions
- State v. PikeSupreme Court of New Hampshire · 1870
- Beaubien v. CicotteMichigan Supreme Court · 1864
- Waterman v. . WhitneyNew York Court of Appeals · 1854
- McLean v. StateSupreme Court of Alabama · 1849
- McGuire v. AlmyMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1937
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