Specht v. Atl. City & S. R. Co.

Citation81 N.J.L. 108,78 A. 1049
PartiesSPECHT v. ATLANTIC CITY & S. R. CO.
Decision Date24 February 1911
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)

Syllabus by the Court.

Certiorari by William Specht against the Atlantic City & Shore Railroad Company, to review an order appointing condemnation commissioners. Order set aside.

Argued November term, 1910, before REED, PARKER, and BERGEN, JJ.

Ulysses G. Styron and Charles C. Babcock, for prosecutor.

Thompson & Cole, for defendant.

PARKER, J. The prosecutor challenges the validity of an order appointing commissioners under the eminent domain act of 1900 (P. L. 1900, p. 79), to determine the amount to be paid to prosecutor by defendants, for his interest in certain lands in Atlantic City required by defendants for an extension of their railroad. The special features of the case are that the lands in question lie in a public street through which the railroad company desires to operate its railroad longitudinally pursuant to section 34 of the railroad act of 1903 (P. L. 1903, p. 663), as amended in 1905 (P. L. 1905, p. 130), and are already occupied by the tracks of a street railway corporation called the Central Passenger Railway Company, which is actually operating thereon.

Prosecutor is an abutting owner on the street, and by virtue of such ownership presumably owns the fee of land in front of his property to the middle of the street, subject to the public easement of travel thereon. It is this ownership that is sought to be taken in this proceeding.

Several questions are argued by counsel which are of importance and would call for our decision, if, in our judgment, the proceeding had been regularly set on foot; but, as we find an underlying jurisdictional defect, it is unnecessary to discuss them. That defect is that no attempt appears to have been made to agree with prosecutor upon a price to be paid for his interest in the premises required. There is some uncertainty as to what those premises are. All that the petition sets forth is that petitioner requires "for the purpose of a single track * * * the land upon which the said tracks are to be constructed within the bounds of the public highway on Virginia avenue, abutting the property of said William Specht." We doubt the sufficiency of this description, if it can be called a description. However, no point is made on this score.

As to the attempt to agree on a price, all that appears is that agents for the defendant called on prosecutor and asked him to sign "a consent for the...

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1 cases
  • Blauvelt v. Erie R. Co.
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)
    • February 27, 1911
    ......N. Y., etc., R. R. Co. v. Leaman, 54 N. J. Law, 202, 23 Atl. 691, 15 L. R. A. 426. If, therefore, the plaintiff failed to prove that both signals were omitted, ......

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