Citation Numbers: 154 Mass. 514
Judges: Holmes
Filed Date: 10/24/1891
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 6/25/2022
This case comes before ns on exceptions to certain rulings as to the acquisition of a prescriptive right to maintain a steam hammer alleged to be a nuisance. In addition to the instructions complained of, the jury were instructed that they had no occasion to consider prescription, unless they found, first, that the hammer was a nuisance entitling the plaintiff to damages. These two questions were put to them: first, whether the defendant had acquired a prescriptive right; second, whether the hammer was a nuisance. They answered the first, Yes, and the second, No. Of course the answer to the second made the rulings on the first immaterial. It is suggested that the jury were confused by the order of the questions, and otherwise; that in order to find a prescriptive right they must have found that the hammer was a nuisance; and that their answer, No, to the second question, should be taken to mean only that the hammer
Exceptions overruled.