Case ID: mass_22/html/0421-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

George Odiorne et al. versus Edward Wade.
    A plea of a highway from time immemorial, is supported by proof of the existence of the way for sixty years, there being no evidence showing its commencement.
    Trespass quare clausum fregit. The defendant pleaded a common highway from time immemorial through the close. A verdict was found for the defendant; and upon a motion for a new trial because the verdict was against the weight of the evidence, the Court said : — Several witnesses testified to the existence of the way in some form or other, for more than sixty years, and there is no evidence showing its commencement. The duration of the way therefore is sufficient to support the plea of prescription. But to prove a prescriptive way it is not only necessary that it should have existed immemorially, but that the use of it should have been uninterrupted.
    
      Hilliard and T. Fuller, for the plaintiffs,
    cited 3 Dane’s Abr. 251, et seq. ; Gayetty v. Bethune, 14 Mass. R. 49 ; 2 Wms’s Saund. 175, note 2 ; Commonwealth v. Newbury, 2 Pick. 51 ; Co. Lit. 113 b, 114 a ; 3 Cruise’s Dig. tit. 31, c. 1, § 24, 28, 31 ; 1 Bl. Com. 76, 77 ; 2 Bl. Com. 263.
    
      Hoar, for the defendant.
    
      
       See Reed v. Northfield, 13 Pick. 94 ; Coolidge v. Learned, 8 Pick. 504; Kent v. Waite, 10 Pick. 138.
    
   The Court were of opinion, upon the evidence, that there was no period of twenty years in which the use of the way had been uninterrupted, and a new trial was granted.