Case Name: Amos M. Carlton vs. Rensselaer O. Hescox
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1871-09
Citations: 107 Mass. 410
Docket Number: 
Parties: Amos M. Carlton vs. Rensselaer O. Hescox.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 107
Pages: 410–411

Head Matter:
Amos M. Carlton vs. Rensselaer O. Hescox.
Evidence of how much hay an ordinary horse will eat in a week is incompetent on the question how much hay was eaten in eight weeks and a, half by a horse which was not in an ordinary condition.
Contract on an account annexed for hay fed by the plaintiff to the defendant’s horse.
At the trial in the superior court, before Dewey, J., it appeared that the plaintiff was a horse doctor, with whom the defendant left the horse to be doctored; that the horse remained with the plaintiff fifteen weeks ; and that it was during eight and a half weeks of this period that the plaintiff claimed to have fed the hay to the horse.
The defendant introduced evidence tending to show that it was agreed by the parties that he should supply the horse’s feed while, the plaintiff was doctoring the horse; and that he supplied a hundred pounds of meal and twenty-four hundred pounds of hay during the fifteen weeks in pursuance of this agreement. But the plaintiff’s evidence tended to show that the quantity supplied by the defendant was much less than that.
“ As bearing on the question of the quantity of hay furnished, and consumed by the defendant’s horse,” the defendant offered to prove, “ by persons who had experience in keeping horses and had experimented on the question, how much hay an ordinary horse will eat or consume in a week; ” but the judge excluded the evidence as incompetent. The jury found for the plaintiff, and the defendant alleged exceptions.
A. Brainard, for the defendant.
W. 8. B. Hopkins, for the plaintiff, was not called upon.

Opinion:
By the Court.
It did not appear that the horse in question was an ordinary horse; but as the defendant had left him with the plaintiff to be doctored, there was evidence that he was not in an ordinary condition. Therefore evidence as to how much hay an ordinary horse will eat or consume in a week was immaterial, and its rejection furnishes no ground of exception.
Exceptions overruled.