Amory v. Inhabitants of Town of Melrose
| Decision Date | 02 January 1895 |
| Citation | 162 Mass. 556,39 N.E. 276 |
| Parties | AMORY v. INHABITANTS OF TOWN OF MELROSE. HILL v. SAME. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Exceptions from superior court, Middlesex county; Albert Mason, Chief Judge.
Actions by Georgia A. Amory and one Hill against the inhabitants of the town of Melrose to recover damage sustained by plaintiffs through the widening of a certain street by defendants. On judgments for the petitioners, respondents bring exceptions. Exceptions overruled.
W.B. Stevens, for petitioners.
Hesseltine & Hesseltine, for respondents.
These cases were petitions for the assessment of damages for the taking of land from the front of the petitioners' house lots to widen a street. The respondents now contend that two persons were improperly allowed to testify as experts, and that a witness who testified as to the price of a lot of land in the vicinity was not allowed, in answer to questions of the respondents, to testify what price was paid for another lot directly across the street from the former. Whether or not a person called as an expert witness shall be allowed to testify to his opinions in a case (see Tucker v. Railroad Co., 118 Mass. 546), while largely within the discretion of the presiding judge or officer, is yet a question of fact, for his decision.
We think there was no error in admitting the witnesses as experts, and that it cannot be said that, when it became the duty of the presiding justice to pass upon the question, he could not, in law, upon the evidence before him, find the question of fact in favor of the petitioners. The subject of investigation before the jury was the amount of damage, occasioned by the widening of a street, to land and buildings situated in the vicinity of Boston. It involved, besides the value of the land taken, the damage or benefit to the remaining lands, and, to some extent, the cost of retaining walls and of the removal of buildings. The two persons called as experts had each been long engaged in the real-estate business in Boston, and one was also an auctioneer. He had been making foreclosure sales in the vicinity of Boston for 20 years, and testified that he had sold land in all parts of Melrose; saying that he might have made 25 or 30 sales in Melrose, or double that number, and that he had made public sales of real estate in almost every town in the vicinity of Boston. The other witness had been in the real-estate business since the year 1870, and,...
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Amory v. Inhabitants of Melrose
...162 Mass. 556 39 N.E. 276 AMORY HILL v. INHABITANTS OF TOWN OF MELROSE. HILL v. SAME. Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.January 2, 1895 ... COUNSEL ... [162 Mass. 558] ... [39 ... N.E. 276] W.B. Stevens, for petitioners ... Hesseltine & Hesseltine, for respondents ... ...