Case Name: Jane Wood versus Ebenezer Prescoti
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1806-10
Citations: 1 Tyng 174
Docket Number: 
Parties: Jane Wood versus Ebenezer Prescoti.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 2
Pages: 168–169

Head Matter:
Jane Wood versus Ebenezer Prescoti.
in trespass quart clausum, frcgit before a justice of the peace, the defendant pleads m bar that he entered into his adjoining close, and there erected a fence, &c. The justice has jurisdiction.
This was an action of trespass for breaking and entering the plaintiff’s close, and prostrating her fence. It was commenced before a justice of the peace. The defendant, as to the force and arms, &c., pleaded not guilty; and as to the residue of the trespass, he pleaded in bar that at the time when, &c., he [ *175 j. was * seised and possessed of a certain close, next adjoining the plaintiff’s close described in her writ,-bounded, &c., (as set forth in the plea,) and that he, at the time when, &c., entered into his said close, and there erected a fence of the length of fourteen rods, as was lawful for him to do, which is the same trespass, &c., and this, &c., wherefore he prays judgment, &c.
The justice, upon this plea being filed, supposing it to be a plea of title in the defendant, ordered him to recognize to the adverse party, to enter the action at the next Court of Common Pleas, &c At the Court of Common Pleas there was a replication, de son tort, to which the defendant demurred.
Dana, for the defendant,
was about to show that the declaration was ill, and therefore that the defendant must have judgment.

Opinion:
Curia.
The first inquiry is, whether this cause is regularly before us. The defendant has not pleaded his title to the locus in quo,but another distinct fact, viz., that he entered into a close of his own, adjoining to the locus in quo, &c. At another day in the term,
Parker, J.
This case, upon these pleadings, might have been tried by the justice. It therefore comes irregularly before us, and must be dismissed.
Sewall, J., and Sedgwick, J., concurred.
Parsons, C. J.
This Court has jurisdiction of appeals in civil actions from the Court of Common Pleas, only where the actions are originally commenced in that court, except in actions of trespass, sued before a justice of the peace, in which the defendant pleads a title in himself. In this case there was no such plea. The appeal must be dismissed.
Judgment that the appellant take nothing by his appeal.