Case ID: walker_4/html/0179-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

OVERHOLT’S APPEAL.
    In a road case the facts do not come up for review; and the action of the Court will he sustained if the proceedings are regular.
    Certiorari to Quarter Sessions of Bucks County. No. 162 January Term, 1872.
    This was a petition for a road in Bedminster Township, and the jury reported in favor of the road. Exceptions to the .report were filed as follows:
    
      . i. The petition upon which said jury was appointed did not set out any certain beginning or ending of the road prayed for.
    2. There is a variance between the petition aforesaid and the report of the jury in relation to the beginning of the said road — the petition being as follows, viz: “To begin in the public road leading from Plumsteadville to Keller’s Church, at a point on lands of Jonas Myers,” while the report is in the following language, viz : “Beginning at a stake in the public road leading from Plumsteadville to Keller’s Church, on lands of joñas Myers.”
    3. There was no such stake at the place of beginning as that referred to in the report until the jury themselves placed it’ there, and no such place of beginning as the stake aforesaid is. described in the petition.
    4. The jury aforesaid report no certain terminus of the said road, so that the Supervisors might know where the said road' was to terminate, the report simply fixing the road as ending at a point in a public road running between lands of Peter O. Mickley and Jacob Slotter, and sometimes called Mickley’s road, on lands of the said Jacob Slotter.
    
      Richard, Watson and E. M. Lloyd, Esqs., for Overholt,
    argued that the report should fix :the termini with reasonable certainty ; but the exact points need not be specified; Kyle’s Road, 4. Yeates 514; McConnell’s Mill Road, 32 Pa. 285; Miller’s Road, 9 S. & R. 35; Bean’s Road, 35 Pa. 280. The discretionary power of the Court over the report must be reasonably exercised, or the judgment will be reversed; Fretz’s Appeal, 15 Pa. 397; Hess’ Mill Road, 21 Pa. 217; Southampton Road, 21 Pa. 356.
    
      George Ross, Esq., contra,
    
    cited Spring Garden Road, 43 Pa. 144; Duff’s Road, 66 Pa. 459; Keeling’s Road, 59 Pa. 358; Road in Lower Merion, 58 Pa. 66. Mickley’s road ran for three-eighths of a mile between the lands of Mickley and Slotter,. and hence there was no certain terminus.
   The Supreme Court affirmed the order of the Quarter Sessions on March 11, 1872, in the following opinion:

Per Curiam.

It is not known upon what ground the Court of Quarter Sessions set aside the report in this case, whether for errors in law or in fact. It is not to be doubted that the Court could set aside the report upon the representation of what in its discretion it might consider sufficient reasons for so doing, and we be without power to review the decision. The reason for this is well known, namely, that the writ of certiorari does not bring up the facts upon which the Court may have acted. All that is examinable on certiorari in this Court is the regularity of the proceedings; Duff’s Road, 16 P. F. Smith 459. The Supreme Court will not review the facts in a road case; Spring Garden Road, 7 Wr. 144. There are numerous decisions to this effect. The result of the rule is, that if a Judge sets aside a report for facts against it, we cannot look into the testimony for error. We cannot presume it. If error be not made to appear, the presumption is conclusive that it does not exist. We must, therefore, affirm the action of the Court in this case. The order of the Court is accordingly affirmed at the cost of the exceptants.

The Court set aside the proceedings, and Tobias Overholt, a ■petitioner, then appealed, complaining of the action of the Court in setting aside the report.