Cornell-Andrews Smelting Co. v. Boston & Providence Railroad

89 N.E. 118, 202 Mass. 585, 1909 Mass. LEXIS 895
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedJune 24, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 89 N.E. 118 (Cornell-Andrews Smelting Co. v. Boston & Providence Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cornell-Andrews Smelting Co. v. Boston & Providence Railroad, 89 N.E. 118, 202 Mass. 585, 1909 Mass. LEXIS 895 (Mass. 1909).

Opinion

Braley, J.

The petitioner, which held a lease of a part of the premises, and the landowner having severally brought suits against the respondent and the town to recover damages caused to their respective estates by the discontinuance of a private way at a grade crossing and by the taking of land for a public way, laid out and built pursuant to the decree, the cases were tried together in accordance with the provisions of R. L. c. 48, §§ 20, 23. The joinder for the convenience of trial, however, having worked no change in the statutory liability of the respondents, which remained several and not joint, each party was privileged under R. L. c. 176, § 29, to challenge four jurors without assigning any cause. Stone v. Segur, 11 Allen, 568, 570.

If a reference to the evidence, rulings and instructions in the other cases is necessarily contained in the exceptions, the only remaining questions before us relate to the petitioner’s title and the measure of damages recoverable against the railroad corporation.

The petitioner’s estate having consisted of the land described in the lease, with the rights of way referred to as appurtenant, it becomes important to ascertain the location of the passageway leading from the demised premises to the cart path. The cart path, with the connecting way on the west, being in existence at the date of the lease, is referred to without further description, but the passageway providing the only roadway from the leased [596]*596premises is described as starting from the northerly line of the lot with a width at least of twelve feet, and thence running over other land of the lessor to the cart path about one hundred and fifty feet distant, which it was to join at a point within two hundred feet from land of the railroad abutting on the east. The termini and maximum width having been fixed, with the choice conferred on the lessee of determining at what point within the two hundred feet the passageway should take its departure, the subsequent location by user, in which the jury could find the lessor had acquiesced, operated as a definite assignment from which without his consent there could be no deviation. George v. Cox, 114 Mass. 382. Stetson v. Curtis, 119 Mass. 266. Lipsky v. Heller, 199 Mass. 310, 318. Bass v. Edwards, 126 Mass. 445.

In the enjoyment of the leasehold, after reaching the cart path the petitioner could proceed to a highway either on the west by crossing the bridge over the river as the most convenient route, or on the east over the railroad at grade.

It was within the authority of the commissioners to prescribe what alterations were necessary to do away with the crossing, and their decree is declared by the statute to constitute a taking of whatever land or other property they decide may be required to carry out the changes. R. L. ,c. 111, § 152, as amended by the Sts. of 1902, c. 440, § 3.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
89 N.E. 118, 202 Mass. 585, 1909 Mass. LEXIS 895, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cornell-andrews-smelting-co-v-boston-providence-railroad-mass-1909.