Spring v. Lowell
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
This was a writ of error brought upon a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas in this * county, rendered on the verdict of a jury upon the complaint of Lowell for damages done by flowing his land.
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This was a writ of error brought upon a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas in this * county, rendered on the verdict of a jury upon the complaint of Lowell for damages done by flowing his land. The substance of the record of the Court of Common Pleas is as follows, viz.:— “ Sylvanus Lowell complains of Seth Spring, for that he, the said Lowell, is the owner, and seised of a certain tract of land in Biddeford, (describing it,) and that the said Spring, on the first day of September, 1794, built a certain mill-dam across Saco River, (on which the premises bounded,) to raise a head of water…
1Opinion of the CourtThacher, J.
The first error assigned respects the oath which was administered to the jury. The law has, with great precision, prescribed the oath which is to be taken. The oath administered ought undoubtedly to be the same, or of the same import with that prescribed by the statute. The oath which is certified to have been administered in this case, is not the same, but essentially different; it does not import the same ideas, obligations, and duties. To the sufficiency of a certificate it is necessary that it should follow the words of the statute, or state generally, that the jury were sworn according…
2Cited by1 opinion
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