Case ID: mass_16/html/0372-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

* Abraham Tinkham versus Joseph Meigs.
    Costs arising before referees, and the costs of witnesses on the question of accepting their report, are taxable by the party recovering judgment, although the report of the referees be not accepted.
    - This action, while pending in the Court of Common Pleas, had been submitted, by a rule of that Court, to certain referees. Their report was rejected; and the plaintiff, afterwards obtaining judgment, had taxed in his bill of costs the amount of the costs arising before the referees, and also the costs of the travel and attendance of witnesses, who had been summoned by him to induce the acceptance of the report. The defendant moved the Court below to strike those items out of the bill. The Court overruled the motion ; and the defendant brought the cause into this Court, upon exceptions filed by him to their decision.
    
      Beal, for the plaintiff.
    
      Holmes, for the defendant.
   Per Curiam.

We are all of opinion, that the costs claimed by the plaintiff were properly taxable. The hearing before the referees was a regular part of the proceedings in the suit; and all these costs were necessarily incurred by the plaintiff in the prosecution of his rights. It was not owing to him, that the report of the referees was not accepted ; if it had been, perhaps our opinion might have been different.