People ex rel. Cecil v. Carman

Quinn and others, inhabitants of Southampton, Suffolk county, liable to be assessed for highway labor, applied to the commissioners of highways of the town to lay out a highway. The commissioners of highways refused, and the same petitioners applied to the county court, under chap: 568, Laws of 1890, §§ 83 and 84, for the appointment of commissioners to lay out the highway and to assess' the damages occasioned thereby. The commissioners laid out the road and certified relator’s damages for the land which was taken therefor from the relator, Mrs. Cecil. Mrs. Cecil obtained a writ of certiorari to reverse the adjudication and she alleges three reversible errors on the part of the commissioners. The application was for a road: Beginning

at a highway through East Quogue at the southwest corner of land of N. S. Jackson and running from thence easterly to the southeast corner of the land of W. B. Benjamin and Mrs. George Cecil, continuing from thence northerly to the bay or creek. The commissioners went beyond the land of Benjamin eight rods in the same direction before running north to the creek. This departure was not only within the power of the commissioners, but was one which should have been made if thereby a better road was obtained. The commissioners are not bound to follow the route of the petition for the road with precision. The proposed road was between two ponds and the road exactly meets the petition. The extension of one of the corners further than the petition was, therefore, not erroneous. People ex rel. Cook v. Hildreth, 24 St Rep., 458 .

The relator also avers for error that the road goes through her orchard yard, lawn and flower garden. The proof fails to show the fact alleged. The relator’s house is on an uninclosed field and the road interferes with no part of it used as a lawn, yard or flower garden within the spirit and intent of the statute. Besides this the certificate of the commissioners that the road was laid out through the relator’s orchard yard would be good as a step by way of the county court to obtain the road. The questions raised' upon the merits are not sustained by the evidence. The particular objection made to the road by the owners Benjamin and Cecil to> the road as proposed were that a highway on Benjamin’s land and in front of Mrs. Cecil would be exceedingly objectionable to those owners. . The commissioners carried the road beyond Mrs. Cecil’s house and beyond the Benjamin south line.

The oi’der of the commissioners laying out the road applied for should be affirmed, with costs.

Bykman and Pratt, JJ., concur.