Hall v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 02 February 1920
• Citation: 235 Mass. 1,126 N.E. 49
• Parties: HALL v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

235 Mass. 1

126 N.E. 49

HALL

v.COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Bristol.

Feb. 2, 1920.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Bristol County; Franklin T. Hammond, Judge.

Petition for assessment of damages from taking of land for a highway by Frederick S. Hall against the Commonwealth, resulting in finding for defendant, and petitioner excepts. Exceptions overruled.

The questions submitted to the jury follow:

[235 Mass. 2]1. What was the fair market value of the entire Frederick S. Hall property immediately before May 23, 1916, the date when the highway commission made the taking? The jury answer: Two hundred and fifty dollars.

2. What was the fair market value of the entire Frederick S. Hall property immediately after the taking, considering such property in the light of the condition in which it was actually left after the road was completed? The jury answer: Three hundred dollars.

3. Did the building and maintenance of the road confer upon the estates in the neighborhood generally a benefit or benefits of a sort common to them all? The jury answer: Yes.

4. How much, if any, did such kind of benefit or benefits add to the value of the Frederick S. Hall property? The jury answer: Fifty dollars.

5. What, if any, are the petitioner's damages? (Note: Subtract the answer to question 4 from the answer to question 2, and then subtract the sum so obtained from the answer to question 1. The sum then remaining, if any, answers this question 5.) The jury answer: None.

The instructions on the question of special and general benefits from the highway involved follow:

Fourth question, how much, if any, did such kind of benefit or benfits add to the value of the Scott property?

Now the kind of benefits which you are to take into consideration in these questions are common or general benefits, shared in in common, if you find such to exist, by all the estates in the neighborhood. They are not the kind of benefits which are special to Mr. Scott alone, or any particular class of people in the neighborhood like the abutters on the road. For example, if you find that Mr. Scott's estate after the taking was enhanced in value; that there was an addition to that value by reason of a special and peculiar benefit which Mr. Scott enjoyed, and others in the neighborhood generally didn't enjoy, then he is not entitled to credit for that, and you are not to take that kind of a benefit into consideration in answering the third and fourth questions.

Let me put you an illustration of what sort of a benefit such a peculiar and special benefit would be. If because the road ran by Mr. Scott's place and he abutted on it, and the road was a better and broader and more desirable road to front upon, and if because he was left by the highway commission fronting on a better and a more desirable road, his property was therefore enhanced in value by that reason, that would be a special benefit which was not shared in common by all the other estates in the neighborhood. It might be shared in common by other estates that fronted on that road, and indeed it would be, because if it was an advantage for one to be fronting on a better and more desirable street it would be an advantage to another. The reason why it is an advantage is because a man is fronting on the street, and people who don't front on the street couldn't get that kind of an advantage because admittedly it is the kind of advantage that comes from fronting on a street, and it would be a special and peculiar advantage to Scott even if it was shared in by other people who fronted on the street, and it would be different from a general advantage such as I have spoken of a few minutes ago, because other people, all the people in the vicinity wouldn't have that kind of an advantage. They wouldn't be fronting on the street, and they wouldn't be left fronting on the street.

Now for an advantage of that sort, special and peculiar advantage, Mr. Scott and the others here would not be entitled to any credit. They get that advantage by the layout of the highway and the position of their estates upon the street, and that advantage they are not entitled to credit on. The only advantages they are entitled to take and retain and keep are benefits and advantages of the kind, of the character such as I have described, that is, additional, more convenient use of the road which all people or estates in that vicinity share.Stanley P. Hall, of Taunton, for petitioner.

White & White, of Taunton, for the Commonwealth.

BRALEY, J.

The respondent acting under St. 1915, c. 230, laid out and partially built a state highway in...