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John F. Brocklesby, administrator, vs. City of Newton; Same vs. Same

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court1936-03-03
294 Mass. 41

Summary

Holding. The trial court properly refused to grant the defendant's requested rulings that statutory notice was inadequate because the defendant's counsel admitted during trial that sufficient notice had been given, and such admissions by counsel bind the municipality. The order dismissing the report is affirmed.

The plaintiff brought wrongful death actions against the City of Newton arising from injuries allegedly caused by a highway defect. The defendant requested jury instructions arguing that the plaintiff had failed to provide adequate statutory notice of the injury—a requirement that must be satisfied to establish a cause of action. However, during trial proceedings, the defendant's counsel admitted that sufficient notice had been given, and no dispute over this fact was raised either at the outset or during final arguments. The trial judge therefore declined to grant the defendant's requested instructions attacking the adequacy of notice.

The court upheld the judge's refusal to grant these instructions. Although statutory notice is a condition precedent to liability and cannot be waived outside the courtroom, the defendant was bound by admissions made by its counsel during trial. The court distinguished between a municipal corporation's inability to waive a condition precedent through conduct outside of litigation and counsel's permissible admission of undisputed facts during trial proceedings. Because the defendant's own attorney had conceded the notice issue and the entire trial proceeded on that basis, the defendant could not later require the plaintiff to prove what had already been admitted.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Whether a municipality can require proof of statutory notice after its counsel admits the notice during trial
  • Distinction between waiving a condition precedent outside court versus admitting facts during trial
  • Binding effect of counsel's admissions on a municipal corporation

Procedural posture

The defendant appealed the trial judge's refusal to grant requested jury instructions challenging the adequacy of statutory notice after the defendant's own counsel had admitted notice during trial.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

Qua, J.

These are actions for the conscious suffering and death of the plaintiff’s intestate, alleged to have resulted from a defect in a highway.

The only questions before us arise from the refusal of the judge to grant rulings requested by the defendant in each case to the effect that the statutory notice given by the plaintiff to the defendant of the time, place and cause of the injury was inadequate. On the first day of the trial, and again during the final arguments, colloquies took place between counsel and with the court, from which the judge was well justified in concluding that the defendant admitted that a sufficient notice had’ been given and that there was no question of notice in the case.

After what had taken place there was no error in refusing requests for rulings attacking the notice. It is true that the giving of the notice in cases within the statute is one of the facts required to create a cause of action. If it is not given, no cause of action arises. For this reason it has been held that the city of town cannot waive the notice. Gay v. Cambridge, 128 Mass. 387. This means that there can be no waiver out of court which dispenses with the necessity for giving the notice. It does not bear upon the conduct of a trial in court by an attorney representing the municipality. It does not make it necessary for the plaintiff to prove the giving of a sufficient notice, when that fact is admitted in court by the defendant. It does not prevent the defendant from admitting in court the fact that notice has been given or from stating or agreeing in court that no issue exists as to that fact, just as it might admit, state or agree that the way in question was a pub- lie way or that the plaintiff was injured while travelling upon it, or as to the truth of any other fact which is a necessary part of the plaintiff’s case. This is not waiving a condition precedent. It is a method of establishing facts. Nothing is more common in practice or more useful in dispatching the business of the courts than for counsel to admit undisputed facts. Their clients, including municipal corporations, are bound by such admissions. Lewis v. Sumner, 13 Met. 269. Central Bridge Corp. v. Lowell, 15 Gray, 106, 128. Savage v. Blanchard, 148 Mass. 348. Boston Electric Co. v. Cambridge, 163 Mass. 64, 68. McMahon v. Lynn & Boston Railroad, 191 Mass. 295, 299. Mercier v. Union Street Railway, 230 Mass. 397, 406. Graustein v. H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. 293 Mass. 207, 217. Oscanyan v. Arms Co. 103 U. S. 261, 263. In Lewis v. Sumner, cited above, as in this case, counsel had admitted the giving of an adequate statutory notice which was essential to the plaintiff’s recovery.

Brown v. Winthrop, 275 Mass. 43, at page 47, is distinguishable from the present case. In that case the town, at a former trial, admitted the giving of the notice, and this court, in reviewing that trial, treated that fact as thereby established. Brown v. Winthrop, 270 Mass. 322, 324. But before the beginning of the second trial, counsel for the town informed counsel for the plaintiff that he would require proof of notice, and this court held that the actual giving of the notice could not be waived and that under the circumstances the admission at the first trial that notice had been given was not binding at the second trial. See Cadigan v. Crabtree, 192 Mass. 233, 241; Perry v. Simpson Waterproof Manuf. Co. 40 Conn. 313; Holley v. Young, 68 Maine, 215; Currie v. Cleveland, 108 Maine, 103; Morrison v. Montgomery, 105 Kans. 430; Paine v. Chicago & North Western Railway, 217 Wis. 601; Johnston v. Cornelius, 200 Mich. 209, 213; Stemmler v. Mayor, Aldermen & Commonalty of New York, 179 N. Y. 473, 481. In the cases at bar the very trial here under review proceeded upon the theory that notice had been admitted. Doubtless counsel for the plaintiff and the judge acted in reli- anee upon that admission. At the close of the trial it was too late to question the notice.

We have not found it necessary to pass upon various contentions not herein mentioned.

Order dismissing report affirmed.