Case ID: me_63/html/0102-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Walton, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Inhabitants of Pownal vs. County Commissioners.
    
      Commissioners’ record must show town acted unreasonably.
    
    Upon an application to the county commissioners to lay out a town road which a town has refused to accept, the unreasonableness of this refusal must be adjudged by the county commissioners and entered of record, or their location of the way will be quashed upon certiorari.
    
    On report.
    Petition kor certiorari, to quash the proceedings of the county commissioners of Cumberland county, in laying out a town way in Pownal, which had been previously laid out by the selectmen of that town; but the town had refused to accept it, whereupon application had been made to the county commissioners, who adjudged the way to be of common convenience and necessity and established it. This petition alleged numerous omissions and defects in the records of the commissioners, among others that it did not therein appear that the town’s refusal to accept the location was unreasonable. This court was to grant or refuse the writ, as the case required.
    
      Strout dh Holmes, for the petitioners.
    
      Joseph A. Locke, for the respondents.
   Walton, J.

On application to the county commissioners to lay out a town road, in the nature of an appeal, founded on the alleged unreasonable neglect or refusal of the selectmen to lay it out, or the unreasonable refusal of the town to accept it, the unreasonableness of the neglect or refusal must be adjudged by the commissioners, and entered of record, as the foundation of their jurisdiction, or their proceedings will be quashed on certiorari. An adjudication that the way is of “common convenience and necessity” is not sufficient. So held in Pownal v. Co. Com., 8 Maine, 271; and again in State v. Pownal, 10 Maine, 24, where the question is fully discussed; and again in Goodwin v. Co. Com., 60 Maine, 328. The record in this case contains no such adjudication. The error is a fatal one. Writ of certiorari to issue.

Appleton, C. J\, Dickerson, Barrows, Danforth and Yirg-in, JJ., concurred.