The case involved Turnpike Realty Company challenging the validity of a Dedham zoning by-law amendment that placed most of its 61.9 acres of land, including lowlands and knolls, into a Flood Plain District, which severely restricted building and filling. The Land Court upheld the by-law, and the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, ruling it a valid exercise of authority under G.L. c. 40A. The court reasoned that the by-law's purposes—to protect against flooding, preserve groundwater, and conserve natural areas—were legitimate, the restrictions were not confiscatory, and zoning enactments are presumed valid unless clearly exceeding legislative power. The inclusion of the land was justified as it was subject to seasonal or periodic flooding.
The case Kass v. Todd concerned a contract dispute in which the plaintiff homeowner sued the defendant builder in equity to compel delivery of keys, activation of a sewage system, and an occupancy permit for a new house, along with damages for delays, while the defendant counterclaimed for unpaid contract amounts and extras after the plaintiff stopped payments citing slow progress. A master found no agreed completion date, that the plaintiff materially breached by withholding payments, that the defendant was justified in stopping further work, and that construction was substantially complete. The court held that because the defendant continued performance after the breach rather than abandoning the project, recovery was limited to the contract balance plus extras rather than quantum meruit, reversing the prior decree and ordering the plaintiff to pay $6,778.41 with interest while dismissing the bill.
This case involved a plaintiff who was injured when a bottle of Canada Dry ginger ale she purchased from Najjar's store broke in her hand, leading her to sue Najjar for breach of an implied warranty of fitness; Najjar in turn filed a third-party claim against Canada Dry alleging breach of its own implied warranty. The jury awarded the plaintiff $5,000 against Najjar, but the trial court directed a verdict for Canada Dry on the third-party claim. The appeals court held that the directed verdict was erroneous and that Najjar's claim against Canada Dry should have gone to the jury. The core reasoning was that testimony from Najjar's employee and the plaintiff that the bottle appeared normal and was not mishandled tended to exclude improper handling by intermediate parties, supporting an inference under precedents like Evangelio v. Metropolitan Bottling Co. that any defect was latent when Canada Dry delivered the bottle.
The case involved a defendant convicted of receiving stolen goods who challenged the denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized from his apartment during a search pursuant to a warrant for items from a recent robbery. The court upheld the convictions, ruling that the search warrant was supported by probable cause based on police observations and an informant's tip, and that additional items could be seized because officers had independent probable cause to believe they were stolen from other burglaries. The court reasoned that the items were in plain view, matched descriptions from known thefts, and the failure to inventory them on the warrant return did not require suppression since they were not seized under the warrant.
In this tort case, the plaintiff, a delivery clerk employed by a tenant at the Boston Market Terminal, sued Produce Terminal Realty Corp. after slipping on thick, wavy ice on a platform and breaking his ankle, alleging that a leaking roof created an unnatural accumulation of ice that the defendant negligently failed to address. The trial judge directed verdicts for the defendant at the close of evidence. On appeal, the court sustained the plaintiff's exceptions, ruling that the evidence permitted a jury to find the defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff as a business invitee, that the ice resulted from a defect rather than natural accumulation, and that contributory negligence or assumption of risk was not established as a matter of law.
The case involved Andrews, who in 1964 pleaded guilty in Superior Court to assault and battery and indecent assault and battery on a child under fourteen, receiving consecutive sentences; he was later examined and committed in 1967 as a sexually dangerous person under G.L. c. 123A. Andrews petitioned for a writ of error, claiming his pleas were involuntary and unknowing because neither his counsel nor the court advised him of the potential for SDP commitment as a consequence. The single justice found the pleas voluntary, was not convinced Andrews lacked knowledge of the statute, and ruled there was no requirement to advise about the civil SDP proceedings, which involved a separate hearing after further observation. The court affirmed, holding that the burden was on the petitioner to prove involuntariness and that Boykin v. Alabama did not apply retroactively to require an affirmative record of knowledge at the time of the pleas. Exceptions were overruled.