Case ID: mass_63/html/0503-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Coukt.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Joshua Shaw, Jr. vs. John Mills. Kendall Baird vs. Same.
    If the verdict of a sheriff’s jury, in a complaint for flowage, follows the statute substantially, though not verbally, it is a sufficient compliance with the terms of the law.
    These were complaints for flowing the same land. The verdicts of the sheriff’s jury, which were returned to the court of common pleas, to be there allowed and recorded, set forth only the amount of damages sustained, respectively, by the complainants, within three years next preceding the institution of the complaints; the amount of their annual damages; and what sum in gross would be a just and reasonable compensation for all the damages to be thereafter occasioned by the use, and for the right of maintaining and using the same forever, in the manner set forth in the verdict. The respondent objected to the allowance and recording of the verdicts, because the allegations in the complaints, “ that the dam is raised to an unreasonable height, and that it ought not to be kept up and closed during the whole year,” are not passed upon and decided by the jury, and no decision bv them, touching said allegations, is stated in the verdicts. The court of common pleas overruled the objections, and accepted the verdicts. The respondent thereupon appealed to this court.
    
      M. Wilcox, for the respondent.
    
      G. J. Tucker, (with whom was W. Porter,) for the complainants.
   By the Coukt.

Let the verdicts be allowed and recorded.