Case ID: mass_106/html/0343-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Cyrus B. Knowles & another vs. Abraham Bachelder & another.
    No appeal, under the Gen. Sts. c. 114, § 10, lies from the decision of a judge who has tried a case without a jury, if his judgment does not appear to have been founded on matter of law, but on facts proved and his inferences of fact therefrom.
    Tort for the conversion of furniture. At the trial in the superior court, before Seudder, J., without a jury, the judge found that the plaintiffs mortgaged certain stock and materials to the defendants by a deed entitling the defendants to immediate possession , that the defendants gave the plaintiffs oral permission to manufacture the stock and materials into furniture and sell the furniture, on condition that from time to time, as the sales were made, a portion of the proceeds should be applied in discharge of the mortgage debt; that this permission was afterwards revoked, on account of a breach of the condition of the mortgage; that the articles alleged to be converted were manufactured from the mortgaged stock and materials in addition to other stock and materials; that in some of the articles of furniture the proportion of mortgaged stock and materials to the stock and materials not mortgaged was two to one, and in others it was one to two ; that the defendants did not agree that such other stock and materials might be incorporated into the furniture to be manufactured, although it was understood that it might be necessary to do so, nor was there any intentional waiver of the defendants’ rights under the mortgage; that when the articles were completed the plaintiffs claimed the right to sell them without applying the proceeds to the payment of the mortgage debt, but the defendants forbade such sale ; that the plaintiffs, notwithstanding, removed them to a railroad depot for the purpose of shipping them for sale; that the defendants thereupon took peaceable possession of them and placed them in their warehouse ; and that no demand was made by the plaintiffs upon the defendants for these articles before this action was begun, and no identification of property was attempted by the plaintiffs. Upon these facts the judge ordered judgment for the defendants, and the plaintiffs appealed.
    
      S. W. Boardman, for the plaintiffs.
    J". N. Marshall B. 5T. Bice, for the defendants.
   By the Court.

It uoes'not appear that the judgment was founded on matters of law. It was apparently based on the facts proved and the inferences of the judge therefrom. We cannot therefore take cognizance of the appeal. Gen. Sts. c. 114, § 10. Uochrane v. Boston, 1 Allen, 480. Gen. Sts. c. 129, §§ 66, 67.

Appeal dismissed.