Case ID: mass_8/html/0380-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Commonwealth, in Certiorari, versus The Inhabitants of Roxbury.
    It is a sufficient ground for the Common Pleas to discontinue a highway, that it has become useless.
    
    Upon a certiorari to the Common Pleas, this Court will not go into the question of the expediency of discontinuing a highway.
    This was a certiorari to the Common Pleas of the county of Norfolk, brought by the inhabitants of Roxbury, to obtain a reversal of an order of that court, which was passed on the petition of Joseph Williams, for the discontinuance of a certain highway in said Roxbury.
    
    The petition for the discontinuance alleged that, by the laying out of the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike, a small section of a road from Roxbury street to Dorchester, which passed over land of the petitioner, had been rendered useless, and thereupon prayed for its discontinuance.
    . The Common Pleas, after notice to the town of Roxbury, and hearing the parties, were of opinion that the said road had become useless by the laying out of the turnpike, and therefore ordered that it should be discontinued.
    
      Whitman, for the inhabitants of Roxbury,
    
    took two exceptions to the record — 1. That the Common Pleas adjudged the way described in the petition to be useless, and grounded thereon the order for its discontinuance; whereas the statute  gives them authority to discontinue a way only when they shall be satisfied that it is not expedient that the same should be continued any longer. 8. That the Common Pleas could not discontinue the way, as being rendered * useless by the location of a turnpike road, as was the case here; it being against the principies oi the laws authorizing turnpikes, that existing roads should be discontinued on account thereof.
    
      Richardson for the commonwealth.
    
      
      
        Stat. 1797, c. 30
    
   By the Court.

The adjudication of the Common Pleas substantially conforms to the provision of the statute. The expression, that the road in question had become useless, has certainly as great strength, and is of as extensive import, as the expression used in the statute.

As to the second exception, the Court will not go into the ques- , tian of the expediency or inexpediency of the discontinuance. That belongs wholly to the court below. But it may be observed, that the Common Pleas did not, in the case before us, discontinue the way merely because the turnpike had been laid out; but, because in consequence of the laying out of the turnpike, the way had become useless; and they were certainly competent to draw this conclusion. The respondents can take nothing by their writ.