Howe v. Howard
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Contract, upon an account annexed, to recover a commission for selling the defendant’s farm in Sherborn. The answer, among other things, alleged that the plaintiff, by conspiracy with certain other persons, fraudulently induced the defendant to execute an agreement to sell the farm to one of such persons for a price much less than its market value.
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Contract, upon an account annexed, to recover a commission for selling the defendant’s farm in Sherborn. The answer, among other things, alleged that the plaintiff, by conspiracy with certain other persons, fraudulently induced the defendant to execute an agreement to sell the farm to one of such persons for a price much less than its market value. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Richardson, J., without a jury, the defendant called as a witness one Wellington H. Pratt, who testified, against the plaintiff’s objection, that he received $600 an acre, or a little more, for sixteen…
1Opinion of the CourtBarker, J.
Assuming that the land taken by the Commonwealth was similar to and in the same vicinity with that the value of which was in issue, and that the taking was sufficiently near in point of time to make evidence of a sale competent under the familiar rule stated in Chandler v. Jamaica Pond *279Aqueduct, 122 Mass. 305, testimony as to the amount received by its owner as damages awarded by a jury for its taking was incompetent. In Wyman v. Lexington & West Cambridge Railroad, 13 Met. 316, 326, Dewey, J., after deciding that evidence of an actual sale of adjacent land was competent, gaid: “ If it had…
2Cases cited3 opinions
- Providence & Worcester Railroad v. City of WorcesterMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1891
- Cobb v. City of BostonMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1873
- Chandler v. Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corp.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1877
3Cited by4 opinions
- Epstein v. Boston Housing AuthorityMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1944
- Edgcomb Steel of New England, Inc. v. StateSupreme Court of New Hampshire · 1957
- Justice v. United StatesCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · 1944
- Frontage Development Corp. v. City of BostonMassachusetts Superior Court · 2001