Green v. City of Everett
| Decision Date | 24 May 1901 |
| Citation | 60 N.E. 490,179 Mass. 147 |
| Parties | GREEN et al. v. CITY OF EVERETT. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Elder, Wait & Whitman, for petitioners.
Thomas J. Boynton, for respondent.
The petitioners concede that incomplete negotiations for settlement of a controversy are not admissible in evidence but contend that the evidence offered and rejected was of a complete settlement of the controversy agreed to by both parties, and which, after it had been agreed upon, failed only from the refusal of the respondent to fulfill it. A view of the facts shows that such was not the case. On September 21, 1897, the petitioners' lands were taken to widen a street; the taking being in proceedings under the betterment acts. In these proceedings the city authorities did not act under the provisions of St. 1884, c. 226, by making a written agreement with the petitioners that the city should assume any betterments to be assessed upon their land, they releasing their claim to damages, upon terms agreed upon between themselves and the authorities acting for the city in taking the land. On the contrary, the taking was the usual one under the provisions of law authorizing the assessment of betterments. It gave to the petitioners a right to damages fixed at the value of their land taken before the widening, and it also gave to the city authorities the power to assess betterments on the land of the petitioners which had not been taken for the widening. The petitioners filed their petition for damages on August 31, 1898. The city authorities exercised their power of assessing the betterments on September 18, 1899, imposing an assessment of $4,232.04 on the petitioners' and. Before the making of this assessment, during the period from April 25, 1899, to June 13, 1899, the petitioners made a proposal to the council and board of aldermen to settle their claim for damages for $7,800, and an agreement to abate the betterments to be assessed upon their property. This proposal was accepted by the council and board of aldermen, and the agreement was passed, over the mayor's veto, by the board of aldermen on May 8, 1899, and by the common council on June 13, 1899. Since that time the petitioners have been willing and have offered to settle according to the agreement, but the city government has neglected and refused to make the appropriation necessary to carry it into effect; and matters were in this state when, upon the hearing of this petition at the March sitting of the year 1900, the petitioners offered to show their proposal, and the action of the city government upon it, as evidence in support of their contention that their damages by the taking were $12,000 or more. By the charter of the city of Everett, the power to lay out streets is conferred upon the city council. St. 1892, c. 355, § 23. If the votes which followed the proposal accepted by the common council and board of aldermen on April 25, 1899, had been passed as a part of the taking of the land, they might have constituted an agreement...
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