218 Mass. 76 | Mass. | 1914
This bill of exceptions is of a kind that is becoming too frequent, — so frequent as to suggest that if persisted in it may call for drastic action to be taken by the court of its own motion. It is such a bill as ought not to have been presented or allowed. It calls for undue effort on the part of the court to pick out the few important facts from the undigested mass of irrelevant and impertinent facts with which they are covered up. See Cornell-Andrews Smelting Co. v. Boston & Providence Railroad, 215 Mass. 381, 387, and cases there cited; Isenbeck v. Burroughs, 217 Mass. 537. That there was no necessity for so voluminous a bill is manifest from a reference to the briefs of counsel, in each of which the material facts and evidence and the questions of law raised thereon are set forth with ample fulness but in a very much smaller compass than was taken for the exceptions. We shall not attempt in dealing with such a bill to do more than state the conclusions which we have reached.
The charge to the jury was a very able and careful' one. But it allowed them to find that the plaintiff was upon the defendant’s premises by its implied invitation. We cannot say that the verdict rendered for the plaintiff did not rest upon such a finding; and therefore there must be a new trial.
The defendant has no right of exception to the refusal of the judge to give its ninth request. If given, it would have been necessary for the judge to explain to the jury the'rule of responsibility for manslaughter caused by criminal negligence; and that might have tended to confuse rather than to help them. The instructions given them as to what would constitute wanton or reckless negligence were full and accurate.
It is not necessary to discuss the other matters which have been argued. It does not seem likely that the questions will arise again in the same way. It is enough to say that we find no material error other than what has been stated.
Exceptions sustained.