Powers v. City Council of Springfield

• Decision Date: 22 October 1874
• Citation: 116 Mass. 84
• Parties: Lewis J. Powers v. City Council of Springfield
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

116 Mass. 84

Lewis J. Powers v. City Council of Springfield

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

October 22, 1874

Hampden. Petition filed August 31, 1874, for a writ of certiorari, to quash proceedings of the city council of Springfield. The petition set forth the proceedings of the county commissioners, stated in the next preceding case ante, 73, and further alleged that pursuant to the St. of 1872, c. 262, § 2, the Boston and Albany Railroad Company named Isaac Hinckley, of Philadelphia, one of the commission of three disinterested persons therein mentioned and the board of railroad commissioners designated a member of that board as one of said commission, and the three persons named as aforesaid accepted the appointment and entered upon the duties thereof, and the matters by said statute committed to them were still pending before them.

The petition of Powers further alleged that upon a petition presented on May 9, 1874, by Henry Fuller and others citizens of and freeholders in Springfield, to the city council of Springfield, and after reference to and report from the board of public works of the city, the city council, a body composed of the board of aldermen and the common council of the city, on July 20, 1874 ordered the grade of Main Street between the tracks of the Boston and Albany Railroad to be raised four feet above the top of the rails, and to the north and south of the railroad so as to fall from the railroad regularly to the present grade of Main Street, and awarded damages to be paid to Powers (who owned a lot of land adjoining the crossing and bounded northerly by the railroad and westerly by Main Street) and other abutters on that part of Main Street the grade of which was so altered.

The reasons assigned in the petition of Powers for a writ of certiorari to quash the proceedings of the city council were that the city council had no jurisdiction in the premises, and that its order was in conflict with the jurisdiction of the county commissioners, and in contravention of the order of the county commissioners on the same subject matter, and of the jurisdiction and duty of said commission of three disinterested persons.

The answer of the city council to this petition for a writ of certiorari admitted the facts stated in the petition; but denied its conclusions of law; and alleged that the proceedings upon the petition to the county commissioners were illegal and void, for the same reasons as stated in the petition of the railroad corporation for a writ of certiorari, ante, 73, and also because Hinckley, not being a resident of the Commonwealth nor within the jurisdiction of this court, was incompetent to act as one of the special commission; that, even if all those proceedings were legal yet, until the special commission should have made and published its award, which they had not done, the order of the county commissioners was and would be inoperative, and the city council of Springfield had full and exclusive jurisdiction of alterations and changes of grade of streets within the limits of the city, and of streets extending beyond the city, so far as it could be exercised without infringing the rights of any railroad corporation whose railroad crossed the streets; and that the order of the city council was made with the assent of the Boston and Albany Railroad...