Case ID: mass_177/html/0104-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Hammond, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Francis D. Mosseau vs. John Landy.
    Hampshire.
    September 18, 1900.
    October 19, 1900.
    Present: Holmes, C. J., Knowlton, Morton, Lathrop, & Hammond, JJ.
    
      Evidence — Question to Witness — Exception.
    
    A bill of exceptions which fails to show what reply was expected to a question put to a witness and excluded by the judge, or what the excepting party offered or expected to prove by it, does not disclose a good ground of exception.
    Contract, to recover for the building of a bank wall on the premises of Mr. William G. Bassett. The first two items of the declaration were as follows :
    “ To laying 75 perch of stone at $0.70 a perch . $52.50 To 226 perch of stone extra at $0.80 a perch . 180.80 ”
    At the trial in the Superior Court, before Stevens, J., it appeared that the defendant had the contract for the building of the wall, which was agreed to be in amount seventy-five perches of stone; that the plaintiff made a contract with the defendant that he would build the same at seventy-five cents per perch, total, $52.50, the amount set out in the first item of the plaintiff’s declaration; that there was a controversy as to whether the defendant ever employed the plaintiff to build any larger wall than was contemplated at the time the contract was made and do this extra work claimed in the second item of the account annexed, and that there was also a controversy as to whether the extra work which the plaintiff claimed to have done was worth eighty cents per perch. The plaintiff introduced evidence tending to show that the defendant employed him to do the extra work set forth in item two of the plaintiff’s declaration; that Mr. Bassett directed the plaintiff to do the extra work, and that the charge of eighty cents per perch was reasonable. The defendant offered evidence tending to show that he had never been employed by the owner of the property to build any larger wall that entered into the first contract, and that Mr. Bassett never directed the plaintiff to do the extra work, and that the work in putting in the additional two hundred and twenty-six perches of stone was not worth eighty cents per perch; and further offered evidence to show that the work was not done in a suitable and proper manner, and that he had never employed the plaintiff to build the additional wall.
    The defendant called Mr. Bassett, and asked him the question, whether or not in that place and at that point the extra work done by Mosseau had any value whatever, to which the plaintiff objected. The judge excluded the question, and the defendant excepted.
    The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff; and the defendant alleged exceptions.
    
      J. C. Hammond, (H. P. Field with him,) for the defendant.
    
      J. B. O’Donnell, for the plaintiff.
   Hammond, J.

The only question is whether there was error prejudicial to the defendant in the exclusion of the question put to Bassett as to the value of the extra work done by the plaintiff.

The bill of exceptions fails to show what the answer would have been, or what the defendant offered or expected to prove by it. We cannot say, therefore, that the defendant has been harmed by the exclusion of the question. Farnum v. Pitcher, 151 Mass. 470.

Fxceptions overruled.