Hinckley v. Hastings
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Trespass for entering into the plaintiffs’ close, situate m Boston, and digging up the soil and filling the plaintiffs’ ditch. The defendant pleaded, first, the general issue ; secondly, that there was a common and public highway over the close, and that because the ditch obstructed the same, the defendant filled the ditch. The plaintiffs replied, traversing the fact of there being any such common and public way ; and thereupon issue was joined.
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Trespass for entering into the plaintiffs’ close, situate m Boston, and digging up the soil and filling the plaintiffs’ ditch. The defendant pleaded, first, the general issue ; secondly, that there was a common and public highway over the close, and that because the ditch obstructed the same, the defendant filled the ditch. The plaintiffs replied, traversing the fact of there being any such common and public way ; and thereupon issue was joined. Under this issue the defendant produced in evidence, at the trial, the books of the selectmen of Boston relating to the supposed street, the deed…
1Opinion of the Court
Lincoln J.,
in giving the opinion of the Court, said in substance, that the laying out of the street was void for uncertainty as to the direction of it ; for it appeared from the evidence in the case, that if it were laid out according to the deed referred to in the record, the line of the westerly side would run several feet ' to the westward of old Blossom street; if, on the other hand, it were laid out in a straight line with old Blossom street, according to the communication from the trustees of the hospital, which also is referred to in the record, then it would run several feet to the…
2Cases cited9 opinions
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- Beatty and Ritchie v. Kurtz and OthersSupreme Court of the United States · 1829
- The Mechanics Bank of Alexandria v. LOUISA & MARIA SETONSupreme Court of the United States · 1828
- Commonwealth v. Justices of the Court of SessionsMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1809
- McConnell v. Trustees of Town of LexingtonSupreme Court of the United States · 1827
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3Cited by1 opinion
- New Britain Trust Co. v. SpencerSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1933