Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1905

Carpenter v. Allen

Carpenter v. Allen
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · Decided October 17, 1905 · Loring
189 Mass. 246; 75 N.E. 622; 1905 Mass. LEXIS 869

Carpenter v. Allen

Opinion of the Court

Loring, J.

[After the foregoing statement of the case.] The ruling was right. R. L. c. 129, § 3, providing that tenants at sufferance in the possession of land shall be liable to pay rent therefor for such time as they may occupy or detain the same does not apply where the tenant has not occupied with the assent express or implied of the plaintiff or one under whom the plaintiff claims. That was decided in Merrill v. Bullock, 105 Mass. 486, to be the true construction of the statute. That construction has been acquiesced in by the Legislature for thirty-five years, and has been followed in later cases. See Central Mills Co. v. Hart, 124 Mass. 123; Kirchgassner v. Rodick, 170 Mass. 543.

Exceptions overruled.

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