Case Name: James Harden, executor, vs. Luther Wade
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1876-10-20
Citations: 121 Mass. 160
Docket Number: 
Parties: James Harden, executor, vs. Luther Wade.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 121
Pages: 160–161

Head Matter:
James Harden, executor, vs. Luther Wade.
Plymouth.
October 17. — 20,1876.
Colt, Devens & Lord, JJ., absent.
This court had.no jurisdiction, under the St. of 1874, c. 36, of a petition to establish the truth of exceptions taken at a trial by jury before a district court and there disallowed.
Petition filed in this court November 8, 1875, to establish the truth of exceptions taken by the petitioner at a trial by jury, in the First District Court of Plymouth, of an action brought against him by the respondent.
The petition alleged that the petitioner seasonably presented to the presiding judge, and filed with the clerk of that court, a bill of exceptions setting forth the exceptions taken at the trial, and that a hearing was had thereon, but the judge had not allowed that bill of exceptions, but had prepared and filed a different one which did not truly or justly set forth the exceptions taken at the trial; and prayed this court to allow and hear the petitioner’s bill of exceptions.
The respondent moved to dismiss the petition for want of jurisdiction.
E. Kingman, for the respondent.
W. E. Osborne, for the petitioner.

Opinion:
Gray, C. J.
The St. of 1874, c. 36, § 6, upon which alone the petitioner relies, and which declared that " all provisions of law, applicable to the Superior Court, relating to the taking, filing and allowing exceptions," should apply to the district courts in cases tried by a jury, had reference to the Gen. Sts. e. 115, § 7-10, which regulate the taking, filing and allowing of excep Lions, and not to the distinct provision of § 11, concerning petitions for establishing the truth of exceptions which have been disallowed. It has not been enacted by the Legislature, and we cannot presume that it was intended, that cases within the limited jurisdiction of these local tribunals should be subject to the delay and expense incident to such proceedings.
As this ground is decisive of the case, we need not consider the difficulty of maintaining in this court a petition to establish the truth of exceptions which, if they had been allowed by the court in which the trial was had, must, by the St. of 1874, c. 336, have been entered in the Superior Court, and could only be brought here after being overruled there.
The whole question involved in the motion before us has been rendered immaterial for the future by the St. of 1876, e. 196, by which trial by jury in civil actions before district courts is abolished. Petition dismissed.