Case ID: mass_59/html/0590-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

David Lincoln & wife vs. The Inhabitants of Barre.
    One who has been a surveyor of highways, at three or four different periods, and has often been employed by the county commissioners, as a surveyor, to assist in laying out roads, as to grades,„but not in the construction of roads, is not competent as an expert, to testify to his opinion concerning the safety and con venience of a particular road.
    This was an action on the case for an injury sustained by the female plaintiff, in consequence of a defect in a highway in the town of Barre, which the defendants were bound to keep in repair.
    At the trial before Wells, C. J., in the court of common pleas, the defendants, having called one Allen, a surveyor, to testify to a plan and measurement, proposed also to inquire of him, on the ground of his being an expert, what his opinion was as to the safety and convenience of the road in question, at the time of the accident.
    The plaintiff objected, and the witness in answer to inquiries upon this point, stated, that he had in previous years been a surveyor of highways in his own town, at three or four different periods ; and had often been employed by the county commissioners, as a surveyor, to aid in laying out roads, as to grades; but that he had never been employed or engaged by them in the construction of roads.
    The presiding judge thereupon ruled, that the witness had no peculiar knowledge to qualify him to speak as an expert, and that the question was therefore inadmissible.
    The plaintiffs having obtained a verdict, the defendants ex cepted.
    
      C. P. Himtington, for the defendants.
    
      R. A. Chapman, for the plaintiffs.
   By the Court.

This case presents but a single question. The action is against the town of Barre for an injury occasioned by a defect in a highway. The defendants, having called a surveyor to testify to a plan and measurements, then proposed to ask him, whether, in his opinion, the road in question was safe and convenient. The only ground upon which the witness was relied on, as an expert, was, that he had occasionally been a surveyor of highways, and that he had occasionally been employed as a surveyor in laying out and grading, but not in constructing roads. The ground, upon which one is called as an expert, is, that the subject in controversy depends on science or peculiar skill, knowledge, or experience, acquired by persons in some trade or profession. There must be always a preliminary inquiry, by the court, as to the fact of the witness’s science and skill, and his capacity to form an opinion upon the subject-matter; and this must often depend upon circumstances of so peculiar a nature and character, that it is difficult to lay down any general rule to guide the decision of the judge in such a case We think the offer was rightly rejected in the present case.

Exceptions overruled. 
      
      
         The cases on the admissibility of the evidence of experts are collected and aommented on by Parker, C. J., in the case of Robertson v. Stark, 15 N. H. 109, 113