Harlow v. Stinson
Supreme Judicial Court of Maine
On exceptions. Replevin of six oxen, property of the plaintiff, taken upon the defendant’s land, to which they had escaped from the plaintiff’s adjoining land, and by the defendant impounded.
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On exceptions. Replevin of six oxen, property of the plaintiff, taken upon the defendant’s land, to which they had escaped from the plaintiff’s adjoining land, and by the defendant impounded. It was contended by the plaintiff, that the partition fence between their respective adjacent lands had been divided more than forty years before, and that the plaintiff’s oxen had escaped from his close to that of the defendant, through a defect in that portion of the partition fence which the defendant was bound by prescription to maintain. The plaintiff introduced parol testimony, which was admitted…
1Opinion of the CourtAppleton, C. J.
‘ Prescription to fence,’ says Parsons, C. J., in Rust v. Low, 6 Mass. 97, ‘ is allowed at common law, as resulting from an original grant or agreement, the evidence of which is lost by lapse of time. . . . The country has now been settled long enough to allow of the time necessary to prove a prescription ; and ancient assessments by fence-viewers, made under the late provincial laws, and also ancient agreements made by the parties, may have once existed, and be now lost by lapse of time.
‘ Every person, then, may distrain cattle doing damage on his close, or maintain trespass against the…
2Cited by1 opinion
- Castner v. RiegelSupreme Court of New Jersey · 1892