Old Silver Beach Corp. v. Town of Falmouth

• Decision Date: 15 February 1929
• Parties: OLD SILVER BEACH CORPORATION v. TOWN OF FALMOUTH.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

266 Mass. 224

165 N.E. 1

OLD SILVER BEACH CORPORATION

v.TOWN OF FALMOUTH.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Barnstable.

Feb. 15, 1929.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Barnstable County; Edward T. Broadhurst, Judge.

Petition by the Old Silver Beach Corporation for assessment of damages for taking of land by the Town of Falmouth for park purposes. Verdict for petitioner, and respondent brings exceptions. Exceptions sustained.

L. Powers, of Boston, for petitioner.

J. P. Sylvia, Jr., of Boston, for respondent.

CARROLL, J.

This is a petition for the assessment of damages for the taking by eminent domain by the respondent for park purposes of a tract of land, owned by the petitioner and located on the south shore of Buzzard's Bay between West Falmouth and North Falmouth. There was a verdict for the petitioner. The case is in this court on the respondent's exceptions.

Walter H. Wing, a witness called by the respondent as a real estate expert, testified in substance that he lived in Pocasset; that his business was real estate and building; that he had been in the real estate business for over twenty-five years and had bought and sold, and acted as agent in, real estate along Buzzard's Bay for the last few years; that he had made sales of real estate in Falmouth, some of the sales being made in West Falmouth; that he had sold some property in the villages of Cataumet and Pocasset with shore privileges, and during the past five years had made five or six sales of shore property on Buzzard's Bay, and had ‘property listed with him in the town of Falmouth for sale, some of them located on Buzzard's Bay quite near this property.’ He further testified that he had conducted a summer rental business for six or seven years and had been interested on a few occasions in appraisals of real estate; that he had looked over the property taken; that his real estate business ‘has taken him over into Falmouth during the last seven or eight years'; that he has bought and sold real estate on Buzzard's Bay north of the land in question and has sold real estate on the water front of Buzzard's Bay at Cataument Harbor and Pocasset Harbor; that Cataumet is the next village north of North Falmouth. He also testified to additional transactions in real estate. At the conclusion of his testimony the presiding judge stated that it did not appear that Wing's knowledge of sales in Cataumet Harbor, Wing's Neck and the town of Bourne was sufficiently helpful to warrant the admission of his testimony. To this ruling the respondent excepted.

Whether a witness called as an expert is qualified by knowledge and experience to testify as such is a question of fact to be decided by the presiding judge, and his decision is final unless upon the evidence it is founded on some error of law. Perkins v. Stickney, 132...