Patch v. City of Boston

• Decision Date: 06 January 1888
• Citation: 146 Mass. 52,14 N.E. 770
• Parties: PATCH v. CITY OF BOSTON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

146 Mass. 52

14 N.E. 770

PATCH v. CITY OF BOSTON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

January 6, 1888

COUNSEL

Hutchins & Wheeler, for petitioner.

Acts 1885, c. 377, seems to indicate that the court-house commissioners were the proper parties to assess the value of the land taken, and it is submitted that the true construction of the provision in the court-house act, that the damages shall be ascertained in the manner provided for ascertaining damages in the case of ways, does not require the introduction of the street commissioners into a matter with which they have no connection, but that the proceedings by the court-house commissioners with respect to damages, and the manner of appeal therefrom, shall be the same as in the case of assessment of damages by the street commissioners. The case of Worcester v. County Com'rs, 100 Mass. 103, was a very different case from the present. Here there was a special board of commissioners authorized to take or purchase the land; thus the authority was given to the city, and, as the court said the damages should be assessed by a third party who stood as an impartial tribunal between the city of Worcester and the inhabitants of Leicester, from whom the land was taken, and that the city council of Worcester, having no relation to the citizens of Leicester, could hardly be a proper tribunal. In the case at bar, however, a special commission was set up which stands independent between the city and the land-owners, and there is no objection to their assessing the damages.

T.M Babson, Asst. City Sol., for defendant.

OPINION

C. ALLEN, J.

This was a petition to the superior court, setting forth that the petitioner was the owner of a parcel of land on Somerset street, in Boston; that the court-house commissioners appointed by the mayor of Boston, had taken said land for a court-house, under St.1885, c. 377; that he had been offered by said commissioners a very much less sum than the damage sustained by him; and praying that his damages might be ascertained by a jury at the bar of the superior court. It appeared that the street commissioners also had made an award of damages for the same taking, with which the petitioner was dissatisfied, and accordingly had filed another petition, praying that his damages might be ascertained by a jury at the bar of the superior court. Both of these petitions came on to be heard together in the superior court, and, after the reading of the petitions and answers, the petitioner declined to elect which petition he would go to trial on. No objection to the form of proceedings was made by the city in either case; but in the answer to each petition the city said that if any land or property of the petitioner had been taken for any public use of the city of Boston, the city was, and ever since such taking had been, ready and willing to pay all damages caused thereby for which it was liable. Under these circumstances, the petitioner declining to elect which petition he would go to trial on, the court ruled that the court-house commissioners had no authority to award damages for the taking of the petitioner's land, but that the street commissioners of the city of Boston were the persons to award the...