Chapter 166

Section 32. A city or town shall, by ordinance, vote or by-law, appoint an inspector of wires. Said inspector shall be a licensed electrician. Two or more cities or towns may vote to form a district and shall appoint an inspector of wires, whose compensation shall be fixed by the…

Section 32A. In a city, town or district which accepts this section, a licensed electrician who is appointed inspector of wires may practice for hire or engage in the business for which licensed under the applicable provisions of chapter one hundred and forty-one while serving as…

Section 33. The supreme judicial or superior court shall have jurisdiction in equity upon petition of the inspector designated or appointed as aforesaid, to enforce the three preceding sections and to restrain the use or maintenance, or to cause the removal, of any wire, pole or …

Section 34. Poles and other structures used to support lines for the transmission of electricity shall be insulated in such manner as to protect employees and other persons from accidents. If such poles and other structures are of any material except wood, and support lines which…

Section 35. A corporation or person maintaining or operating telephone, telegraph, television or other electric wires or any other person who in any manner affixes or causes to be affixed to the property of another any pole, structure, fixture, wire or other apparatus for telepho…

Section 36. A corporation or person maintaining or operating telephone, telegraph, television or other electric wires shall, at all places where such wires are affixed by any pole, structure or fixture to the property of another, mark such pole, structure or fixture in a clear, d…

Section 37. No enjoyment, for the purposes specified in section twenty-one, for any length of time of the privilege of having or maintaining poles, wires or apparatus in, upon, over or attached to any building or land of other persons shall give a legal right to the continued enj…

Section 38. Whoever unlawfully and intentionally injures, molests or destroys any line, wire, pole, pier or abutment, or any of the materials or property of any street railway company, of any electric railroad company, or of any city or town engaged in the manufacture and sale of…

Section 39. Whenever, in order to move a building or for any other necessary purpose, a person desires that the wires of any such company be cut, disconnected or removed, the company shall forthwith cut, disconnect or remove the same, if the person desiring this to be done has fi…

Section 4. Such company shall issue only such amount of stock and bonds, and of coupon notes and other evidences of indebtedness payable at periods of more than three years, as the department of telecommunications and cable may from time to time approve as reasonably necessary fo…

Section 40. Whoever wilfully cuts, disconnects, removes or otherwise interrupts the use of the wires of any such company, without first giving notice as provided in the preceding section, shall be punished as provided in section thirty-eight.

Section 41. The two preceding sections shall not apply to any wires attached to poles not erected in compliance with law.

Section 42. A telegraph company shall be liable in damages to a person injured in his person or property by the poles, wires or other apparatus of such company. If they are erected upon a public way, the city or town shall not, by reason of anything contained in this chapter or d…

Section 42A. Whoever, with intent to defraud, obtains, or attempts to obtain, or aids or abets another in obtaining, any telecommunications services valued less than five thousand dollars by any false representation, false statement, or stratagem, by unauthorized charging to the …

Section 42B. Whoever makes any instrument, apparatus, equipment or device which is designed, adapted or which is used to fraudulently obtain telecommunication service in the manner prohibited by section forty-two A or which is used to conceal, or to assist another to conceal, or …

Section 43. Owners and associations engaged in the business specified in section twenty-one although not incorporated shall be subject to this chapter so far as applicable.

Section 44. Service Observing, Interception.—Service observing of telephone lines conducted by telephone companies for the purpose of determining the quality of transmission or for any other purpose shall cease as soon as a connection is established between the users of the telep…

Section 5. The supreme judicial or superior court shall have jurisdiction in equity, upon the application of the department, attorney general, any stockholder or interested party, to enforce the preceding section and all lawful orders and decisions, conditions or requirements of …

Section 6. A director, treasurer or other officer or agent of any such company who knowingly votes to authorize the issue of, or knowingly signs, certifies or issues, stock or bonds contrary to section four, or who knowingly votes to authorize the application, or knowingly applie…

Section 7. If any such company increases its capital stock, such new shares necessary to produce the amount of increased capital stock authorized shall, except as provided in the following section, be offered proportionately to its stockholders at not less than the market value t…

Section 8. If such increase does not exceed four per cent of the existing capital stock of the corporation, the directors, without first offering the same to the stockholders, may sell them by auction to the highest bidder at not less than the par value thereof to be actually pai…

Section 9. No such company established under the laws of this commonwealth shall declare any stock or scrip dividend or divide the proceeds of the sale of stock or scrip among its stockholders; nor shall any such company issue any share of stock to any person unless the par value…