Case ID: mass_240/html/0093-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Rugg, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Attorney General vs. Herbert W. Eustace & others.
    Suffolk.
    November 29, 30, 1920.
    November 22, 1921.
    Present: Rugg, C. J., Braley, Crosby, Carroll, & Jenney, JJ.
    
      Trust, Charitable. Christian Science Publishing Society. Attorney General. Equity Pleading and Practice, Information by Attorney General.
    An information brought by the Attorney General by virtue of his office for the purposes of establishing The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, as a public charitable trust, of fixing and determining the relation of The Christian Science Publishing Society to that church and of quieting certain described litigation which threatened to impair such charitable trust and to waste its substance, by its frame and its numerous averments showed that it was drawn upon conceptions at variance with the principles declared in the decision in Eustace v. Dickey, ante, 55. Upon a reservation of the suit upon the information and demurrers thereto, it was held, that, without pointing out in detail the specific grounds of inconsistency in the divers allegations of the information, the demurrers should be sustained on general grounds.
    Information, filed by the Attorney General in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk on May 26, 1920.
    The material allegations of the information are described in the opinion. John V. Dittemore and the trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society, defendants, severally demurred.
    The suit came on to be heard before Braley, J., upon the information and the several demurrers, and, with the assent of the parties, he reserved it upon the information and the several demurrers for determination by the full court.
    
      J. W. Allen, Attorney General & C. F. Choate, Jr., Special Assistant Attorney General, (E. H. Abbot, Jr., Assistant Attorney General, with them,) for the informant.
    
      W. G. Thompson, (F. S. Streeter oí New Hampshire, F. C. Demand & G. E. Mears with him,) for Dittemore.,
    
      C. E. Hughes of New York, (S. L. Whipple, L. Withington, S. H. Strawn & R. H. Hollen with him,) for the trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society.
    
      E. A. Krauthoff & D. L. Krauthoff, pro se.
    
   Rugg, C. J.

This is an information brought by the Attorney General by virtue of bis office. Numerous persons are named as defendants, by some of whom several demurrers have been filed. The case comes before us by reservation upon the information and the demurrers.

The purpose of the information as stated by the Attorney General, in his brief “is threefold, — (1) to establish the First Church of Christ, Scientist, as a public charitable trust; (2) to fix and determine the relation of the Christian Science Publishing Society to said First Church of Christ, Scientist . . . and (3) to quiet certain litigation more fully described in the bill, which threatens to impair said charitable trust and waste its substance.” The information amongst its other allegations incorporates the pleadings and the master’s report in Eustace v. Dickey, ante, 55, just decided. The frame of the bill and its numerous averments make plain that it was drawn upon conceptions at variance with the principles declared in the decision in Eustace v. Dickey. It relates in important particulars to instruments there construed and interpreted and to the church polity there described. Without pointing out in detail the specific grounds of inconsistency in the divers allegations of the information, it seems wise to sustain the demurrers on general grounds.

Demurrers sustained.