Rose v. Taunton

• Decision Date: 03 November 1875
• Citation: 119 Mass. 99
• Parties: William F. Rose v. City of Taunton
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

119 Mass. 99

William F. Rose v. City of Taunton

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

November 3, 1875

Bristol. Petition to the county commissioners for a jury to assess damages for the taking of land by the respondent to lay out a highway in the city of Taunton.

At the trial before a sheriff's jury, the petitioner offered office copies of four deeds of land, one from Thomas Leach to Helen E. Felch, one from Helen E. Felch to Thomas Leach, one from Abram R. Pontin to Lewis H. Goward, and one from Joseph H. Rines to David Johnson, to show the price paid for these lots of land, therein described, and for any other purpose for which they were competent. Objection was made to the admission of all these deeds, the objection being to the Leach and Felch deeds that they were of land not similar in character to the petitioner's; and to the deed from Rines to Johnson, because the land was from eight hundred to one thousand feet distant, and that much farther from the thickly settled part of the city. But it appeared to the sheriff that all of these tracts of land were of a similar character to the petitioner's, and that it might give the jury some light respecting the price of the petitioner's land, and they were admitted. The jury returned a verdict for the petitioner.

In the Superior Court the verdict was set aside. The petitioner appealed to this court.

Judgment setting aside the verdict affirmed.

W. E Fuller, for the petitioner.

G. E Williams, for the respondent.

Gray, C. J. Wells & Morton, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Gray, C. J.

The office copies of deeds were incompetent evidence for the purpose for which they were offered and admitted at the trial before the sheriff's jury. Even as against a party to a deed, the recital of the consideration paid is not conclusive, and is admissible as prima facie evidence, only because one party has signed and the other has accepted the deed containing the recital. Paige v. Sherman, 6 Gray 511. As between third persons, such recitals are no evidence whatever. Spaulding v. Knight, 116 Mass. 148, 155.

The sheriff's certificate shows that the copies of deeds were offered and admitted as evidence of the price paid for the land, that objection was made to the admission of all four of them, and that the special grounds of objection extended to three of them only. It is manifest therefore that all the deeds were objected to at the trial as incompetent evidence of the price or value of the land, and that the respondent was entitled to insist upon this objection as a ground for setting aside the verdict.

As several appeals have been entered at this term from orders of the Superior Court setting aside the verdict of a sheriff's jury, and have been entertained by this court without waiting for the result of another trial, it is proper to add, in order to prevent misunderstanding, that such an order does not stand upon the same ground as an order of the...