Verran v. Baird
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort against the administrator of the estate of Harrison Garfield, for damage to the plaintiff’s mill property, caused by the bursting of a reservoir dam which was built and maintained by Garfield and others. Trial in the Superior Court, before Dunbar, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, which, so far as material, is as follows.
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Tort against the administrator of the estate of Harrison Garfield, for damage to the plaintiff’s mill property, caused by the bursting of a reservoir dam which was built and maintained by Garfield and others. Trial in the Superior Court, before Dunbar, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, which, so far as material, is as follows. Evidence was introduced that the plaintiff was the owner of mill property situated about three miles below the reservoir, and that his property was damaged by the water let down by the breaking away of the reservoir dam in question. On the question of damages, and…
1Opinion of the CourtHolmes, J.
We have not the photograph before us, and must assume that it did not show on its face how much of the gorge represented was caused by the flood, and how much of it was there before. There was no offer to prove that fact, or the others which would be necessary to make the gorge a measure of the volume and force of the water which escaped from the dam of the defendant’s intestate. The photograph of a gully’ half-way between the plaintiff’s dam and that of the intestate,, and a mile and a half distant from both, was not necessarily instructive, and unless it was practically instructive it was…
2Cited by10 opinions
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- Nolte v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co.Supreme Court of Iowa · 1914
- Wyldes ex rel. McLaughlin v. PattersonNorth Dakota Supreme Court · 1915
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