Kinsman v. Cambridge

• Decision Date: 12 January 1877
• Citation: 121 Mass. 558
• Parties: John O. Kinsman v. City of Cambridge
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

121 Mass. 558

John O. Kinsman v. City of Cambridge

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

January 12, 1877

Middlesex. Petition to the Superior Court, filed October 26 1874, for a jury to assess damages occasioned to the petitioner's land by the widening of Watson Street in Cambridge. The case was submitted to the Superior Court, and after judgment for the respondent, to this court on appeal on an agreed statement of facts in substance as follows:

On December 6, 1873, the city council of Cambridge passed an order to widen Watson Street, and awarded damages which were not satisfactory to the petitioner. The city did not actually enter upon and take the land of the petitioner until August 1, 1874. No objection was made to the regularity of the proceedings, and the petitioner had no actual notice of the passage of the order until June 18, 1874.

If the petitioner, upon these facts, was entitled to a jury, the case was to stand for trial; otherwise, the petition to be dismissed.

Judgment affirmed.

I. S. Morse, for the petitioner.

J. W. Hammond, for the respondent.

Colt & Ames, JJ., absent.

OPINION

By the Court.

The St. of 1874, c. 341, ^[*] cannot be construed as reviving a right of action which was barred before its passage. Wright v. Oakley, 5 Met. 400. Loring v. Boston, 12 Gray 209. It is unnecessary, therefore, to consider the other grounds of defence.

Judgment affirmed.

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Notes:

^[*]Section 1 of this act, which took effect upon its passage, June 18, 1874, is as follows: "If a person aggrieved by the indemnity awarded to him, or by the assessment of his damages sustained by the laying out widening, altering, relocating or discontinuance of any highway, street, town, way, foot way or private way, omits to file his petition for a jury to assess his damages within one year from the time of such laying out, widening, altering relocating or discontinuance, and he has not received actual notice thereof at least sixty days before the expiration of such year, he may at any time within six months after his land shall have been actually entered upon for the construction or alteration of such way, or after the actual closing of the way upon such discontinuance, file his petition for the assessment of his damages by a jury in the Superior Court, and if it appears tat he has not had such notice, the court shall allow such petition to be prosecuted in the same manner and with the same...