theophilus P. Chandler &Amp; Another, Trustees, v. Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corporation
| Decision Date | 07 March 1877 |
| Citation | 122 Mass. 305 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
| Parties | Theophilus P. Chandler & another, trustees, v. Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corporation |
Norfolk. Petition to the Superior Court for a jury to assess damages sustained by the petitioners by reason of the taking on April 28, 1870, by the respondent, under the St. of 1868 c. 182, of about 100,000 feet of land in West Roxbury.
At the trial, before Wilkinson, J., the petitioners called witnesses as to the character and value of the land, who testified that, at the time of the taking, the land did not front upon any street, being surrounded upon two sides by land of the respondent, upon the third side by land of one Nickerson, and upon the fourth side by a parcel of land owned by the petitioners, containing about 31,000 square feet, lying between the lot in question and a highway called Pond Avenue that the parcel of 31,000 square feet was lower than the land in question, being traversed by a brook; and that in 1870 or 1871, there began a general rise and advance in the value of lands in the towns adjoining Boston, which continued several years.
Horace James, afterwards called by the petitioners, testified that he had been a selectman in Brookline for ten years prior to 1876; that in the year 1873 the town of Brookline purchased of the heirs of Moses B. Williams a parcel of land in Brookline, about 1000 feet distant from the land in question, for a town stable; that it was then surrounded by streets on three sides, forty or fifty feet wide, with sidewalks for nearly the whole front of the parcel; that, when purchased, it was separated only by one of said streets from another parcel of land, which had been sold in small pieces by one Hart, and was then occupied, in part, by laboring men and their families; that the town lot was similar to the land in question only in this, that each consisted of low land and was traversed by a brook; that the two lots were dissimilar in respect to their access to streets, and were also dissimilar as to their nearness to other houses, and as to the likelihood of their coming into the market; that the town lot would find many more purchasers than the land in question; that there were perhaps half a dozen houses within three minutes' walk of the land in question, large houses standing upon large lots of land; and that there had been but few sales near the land in question. The petitioners then asked James the price paid for the town lot. The respondent objected, but the judge allowed the question to be put, and the witness answered, "twenty cents a foot."
The jury returned a verdict for the petitioners; and the respondent alleged exceptions.
Exceptions sustained.
M. Williams, Jr., for the respondent.
A. D. Chandler, for the petitioners.
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Amory v. Commonwealth
...Mass. 371, 190 N.E. 593, and an exercise of his discretion should rarely be reversed. Paine v. Boston, 4 Allen 168;Chandler v. Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Corp., 122 Mass. 305;Woonsocket Machine & Press Co. v. New York, New Haven & Hartford R., 239 Mass. 211, 131 N.E. 461. The sales of similar pr......
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