Case ID: ri_6/html/0433-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Bosworth, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Simeon E. Thornton & others v. Town Council of North Providence.
    Where the owners and their lessees of lands, through which a highway is laid out, unite in an appeal from the decree of the town council laying out the highway, upon the grounds, that the highway was unnecessary, and that no damages were awarded to them, and at the trial of the appeal claim joint damages, it is no matter in arrest of judgment, that separate damages have not been assessed to them.
    Appeal from a decree of the town council of North Providence laying out a highway in said town through lands of the appellants; the reasons of appeal complaining both of the laying out of the highway, and that no damages had been awarded to the appellants.
    On the trial of the appeal before Mr. Justice Shearman with a jury, at the December term of the court of common pleas for the county of Providence, 1859, it appeared, that the appeal was jointly taken by Simeon E. Thornton, as guardian of the persons and estates of Almira W. Thornton, Charles T. Thornton, and--Thornton, minor heirs of Jesse S. Thornton, late of North Providence, as owners of certain lands in North Providence, and by Simeon E. Adams and William T. Adams, lessees and occupants of said lands. The jury found the highway to be necessary, and assessed to the appellants, jointly, the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars as their damages; no request having been made by the appellants, at the trial, for separate trials or assessments of damages, and neither the attention of the court or jury having been called to the subject of such separate assessment at the trial, or upon the coming in of the verdict.
    The appellants thereafter, at the same term of the court of common pleas, filed a motion in arrest of judgment, upon the ground that separate damages should have been assessed, which the judge below having overruled, the matter was now brought to this court by exceptions to the above ruling; all other matter of exception embraced in the bill having been waived.
    
      Weeden, for the appellants.
    
      Brown Van Slyck, for the appellees.
   Bosworth, J.

The judge below rightly refused the motion in arrest. The appellants joined in their appeal and in their claim for damages upon the trial, and there is nothing upon the record on which to ground such a motion. After verdict, everything necessary to support it which could have been admitted to proof under the declaration or claim, must be presumed to have been proved.

It may have been more convenient for the appellants, in dividing the damages recovered, to have had them separately assessed'; but as they have united in their appeal and claim for damages, and the whole damages they have sustained have been assessed to them in the manner in which they sought them, we see no reason why the judgment should have been arrested. It would be manifestly unjust to the other party to subject them to the trouble and expense of another trial, when the verdict is rendered in accordance with the issue raised by the party moving in arrest. The exception must be overruled, and the case left to stand upon the judgment rendered in the court of common pleas upon the verdict.