Case Name: Peleg Cornell vs. Lafayette Dean
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1870-10
Citations: 105 Mass. 435
Docket Number: 
Parties: Peleg Cornell vs. Lafayette Dean.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 105
Pages: 435–436

Head Matter:
Peleg Cornell vs. Lafayette Dean.
Witnesses acquainted with the usual price of pasturing cattle may testify whether it is worth more to pasture transiently than by the season.
One who has hired a farm on shares may maintain an action against a third person, whose cattle he has agreed to pasture thereon, without joining his lessors.
Contract to recover for pasturing seventeen lots of the defendant’s cattle at different times during the spring, summer and autumn of 1867.
At the trial in the superior court, before iScudder, J., several witnesses, who testified that they were farmers, were acquainted with the pasture where the plaintiff put the cattle, had pastured cattle transiently and by the season, and knew the usual price of pasturing in the vicinity, were allowed, against the objection of the defendant, to state whether it was worth more to pasture ‘Battle transiently than by the season.
It appeared that the pasture in question, and the farm connected therewith, belonged to Benjamin Hall and Jonathan and William Slade; that the plaintiff hired it of the owners from year to year on shares, retaining one half of the proceeds of the place and giving the owners the other half; and that the defendant put in the cattle trader an agreement with the plaintiff, and without the knowledge of said owners ; that the plaintiff had the entire charge of the premises; and that the owners never had anything to do therewith.
The defendant requested the judge to rule that the owners were tenants in common with the plaintiff of the crops and proceeds, and that the plaintiff could not maintain the action in his own name; but the judge declined so to rule. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and the defendant alleged exceptions.
J. M. Morton, Jr., for the defendant.
B. K. Lovatt, for the plaintiff.

Opinion:
Chapman, C. J.
Persons acquainted with the business of pasturing cattle may testify as to the price or value of pasturing, and as to its being worth more to pasture them transiently than by the season. This is a species of evidence that is applied to a great variety of transactions. Carpenter v. Wait, 11 Cush. 257. Shattuck v. Stoneham Branch Railroad Co. 6 Allen, 115. Commonwealth v. Dorsey, 103 Mass. 412. The evidence on this point was properly admitted.
Hall and the Slades were not parties to the contract between the parties to this action. They were the plaintiff's lessors, and their rent was to be one half of the proceeds of the land, for which their claim was upon him after he should have collected the amount. The contract was unlike that in Delaney v. Root, 99 Mass. 546. Exceptions overruled.