Stiles v. Estabrook
| Decision Date | 04 August 1894 |
| Parties | T.R. STILES v. WARREN ESTABROOK |
| Court | Vermont Supreme Court |
JANUARY TERM, 1894
Trespass quare clausum. Plea, the general issue. Trial by jury at the June term, 1893, Caledonia county, TAFT J presiding. The jury returned a general verdict for the plaintiff with special findings, and upon this verdict the court gave judgment for the plaintiff. The defendant excepts.
Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
Dunnett & Nelson for the defendant.
Rowell J., did not sit, being engaged in county court.
The plaintiff and defendant owned adjoining premises situated on the west side of Railroad street in the village of St. Johnsbury, extending westerly from that street about sixteen rods to Pearl street, which is nearly parallel to Railroad street, both streets running substantially north and south. The defendant's premises are next south of the plaintiff's, and the controversy related to the division line between them. It was conceded that a certain mark in the stone curbing on the west side of Railroad street was the true boundary at that point, and that the division line between the parties' lands ran westerly from this point at right angles with Railroad street. The plaintiff claimed that the true line was a straight line from that point to a certain stake on Pearl street, while the defendant claimed that it was a straight line from the same starting point to a certain stone on Pearl street twenty-two inches further north. The plaintiff's evidence tended to show that in 1864 a fence was built along the true line from Pearl street easterly as far as the west end of the ell of the house on the north side of the defendant's premises and that a connection was there made with the ell by a short piece of fence going south, and that there was nothing further to mark the line except about one rod of fence from near the northeast corner of the main body of the house on the defendant's lot easterly to Railroad street, which was in line with the first mentioned fence, and that the line so marked was parallel with the jet of the eaves of the same, and one, two, three or four inches north of the jet, and that the fence had been substantially maintained in the same place with the original posts, down to 1892, and that the plaintiff and his grantors had occupied during all that time up to the fence, and that the fence was on the line as claimed by him, and that the fence ran south of an existing elm tree, and that two fence posts which were cut off at the surface of the ground in 1892 about feet east of Pearl street, were parts of the original fence, or two posts that had been placed in the line at some subsequent time when the fence had been repaired and on the true line. The defendant's testimony tended to show that the fence from Pearl street was built on the true line and on the line as claimed by the defendant, and on the line parallel with the north line of his house and eaves, and that he in 1876 moved his barn near the line and caused the old fence on Pearl street east to be all removed and a bank wall to be built in 1877 from Pearl street east some twenty-five feet next the line of his own land, and that in 1883 or 1884 he built a store-house near the line further west than the barn, and, in order to prevent people from passing through, he built an irregular, crooked fence from the northwest corner of the store-house to near the east end of the bank wall, and that the two fence posts were put in by him at that time, and were not on the line or a part of the original fence, and that the original fence ran just south of an elm tree which formerly stood some twenty or thirty feet east of Pearl street and just north of the existing elm tree and further east.
The locality of the fence was in dispute, each party insisting that it was upon the line claimed by him. The plaintiff claimed that it ran south of the elm tree now standing, while the defendant claimed that another elm tree had stood a little further north than the present one, but had been removed, and that the fence had run south of that and north of the present one. Guyer, a witness for the plaintiff testified to the locality of the fence from having seen it when he was building a wall in 1877 on the east side of Pearl street up to a point in the line in controversy. On cross examination the...
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Douglass & Varnum v. Village of Morrisville
... ... lessen the force of what the witness had stated in his ... examination in chief, and was therefore proper ... Stiles v. Estabrooks , 66 Vt. 535, 29 A ... 961; Foster's Exrs. v. Dickerson , 64 ... Vt. 233, 24 A. 253; Titus v. Gage , 70 Vt ... 13, 39 A ... ...
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...the evidence in its defence. One has a right to have the direct and cross-examinations placed in direct contrast before the jury. Stiles v. Estabrook, supra; State v. Hollenbeck, 67 Vt. 34, 30 A. People v. Becker, 210 N.Y. 274, 104 N.E. 396. The error was prejudicial, because it related to ......
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G. W. Bradley v. Amos N. Blandin And Somerset Land Co.
... ... them as independent evidence. Their exclusion as part of the ... plaintiff's cross-examination did not violate the rule ... laid down in Stiles v. Estabrook , 66 Vt ... 535, 538, 29 A. 961, for the letters contained nothing not ... admitted in the cross-examination. The plaintiff was ... ...
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State v. Bert Kelsie
...in chief in all its bearings, and as to anything that tends to explain, characterize, or modify what he has therein stated. Stiles v. Estabrook, 66 Vt. 535, 29 A. 961; Clark v. Gallagher, 74 Vt. 331, 52 A. Goodwin v. Barre Sav. B. & Tr. Co., 91 Vt. 228, 100 A. 34. The mental and physical sy......