Case ID: mass_84/html/0135-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Merrick, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John Foley vs. Elizabeth J. Wyeth, Executrix.
    A tenant at will of land may sustain an action for an interruption of a passage way appur* tenant to the land occupied by him.
    Tort for injury to a passage way appurtenant to land occupied by the plaintiff under a contract for the purchase thereof with the owner, caused by an excavation made by the defendant’s testator in his lifetime upon his adjoining land, by which the land of the passage way was made to fall in and to become impassable. The facts were, in general, the same as in the preceding case. At the trial in the superior court, under the instructions of Ames, J., a verdict was returned for the defendant, and the plaintiff alleged exceptions.
    
      
      B. Deem, for the plaintiff.
    
      H. F. Smith, for the defendant.
   Merrick, J.

The plaintiff was tenant at will of the land described in his writ, and of the passage ways appurtenant thereto. Gould v. Thompson, 4 Met. 224. He was in possession as well of the ways as of the land to the full enjoyment of which they were indispensable; and therefore any unlawful act by which he is deprived of the use of the way is an injury for which he may maintain an action as well as if it had directly interfered with and disturbed him in the occupation of the land The ruling of the court having been otherwise was erroneous, and the exception taken to it by the defendant must be sustained. See Foley v. Wyeth, ante, 131.