Brown v. Gordon
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Action of torv for an assault and battery, brought by a boy of the age of seventeen years, by his father and next friend.
Read the full summary
Action of torv for an assault and battery, brought by a boy of the age of seventeen years, by his father and next friend. The defendant, in his answer, admitting the assault, alleged first, that it was done in self-defence, to repel an assault made upon him by the plaintiff; and secondly, that it was lawfully done by him, as sexton of the Church of the Advent, in Green Street, authorized by vote of the church to take care of its buildings and property, in attempting to expel the plaintiff from a passage way by the side of the church, after a request to him to leave it, and his refusal to do…
1Opinion of the Court
Bigelow, J.*
The instructions to the jury in the present case seem to us to be defective and insufficient, because they do not contain the proper limitation and qualification of the right to use force to repel an assault. It is not enough for a defendant, in justification of an assault and battery, to prove that he acted in self-defence; but it must be made to appear, that no more force was used by him than the exigency reasonably demanded. If he was guilty of an unreasonable and disproportionate degree of violence towards the person of another, he is liable for such excess, although he was…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Tinsley v. RollCourt of Appeals of Kentucky · 1859
3Cited by1 opinion
- Eckerd v. WeveSupreme Court of Kansas · 1911