Case ID: me_68/html/0226-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Walton, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Caleb Hodgdon, petitioner for certiorari, vs. County Commissioners of Lincoln County.
    Lincoln.
    Decided May 30, 1878.
    
      Certiorari.
    
    While an appeal is pending from the decision of the county commissioners locating or discontinuing a way, a writ of certiorari to quash the record of the county commissioners will not he granted. The objections that might he made on the petition may be taken on the appeal.
    On EXCEPTIONS.
    Petition eor certiorari.
    A petition for'laying out a highway from Wiscasset to Hodg-don’s Mills, in Boothbay, was denied by the county commissioners at the September term, 1872. On appeal to the S. J. court, a committee was appointed, who reported at the October term, 1873, “ that as to that part of the road named in said original petition, described as beginning at or near Luther Emerson’s, in said Boothbay, running east and south by Benjamin P. Giles’s to Hodgdon’s Mills, said judgment be reversed, and that common convenience and necessity required the location and establishment of the road, as prayed for in said original petition.” The report of the committee was accepted and certified to the county commissioners, and continued to the November term, 1871, when they laid out and established the road, ordering it to be built within two years from that time. A new petition was afterwards presented to the commissioners to discontinue the road so established, and was granted by them, against the remonstrance of the petitioners for certiorari; and the commissioners adjudged and determined that common convenience and necessity did not require the road, and declared the same to be discontinued, no part of the road having been built.
    On the hearing of the petition for certiorari, at the April term, 1877, it appeared that the parties remonstrant had taken appeal then pending without waiving other remedies; and the presiding justice ruled that the petition was insufficient to warrant the issue of the writ as prayed for; and the petitioner alleged exceptions.
    
      P. K. Sevjall, for the petitioner.
    
      A. P. Gould c§ J. JE. Moore, for the respondents.
   Walton, J.

While an appeal is pending from the decision of county commissioners locating or discontinuing a way, there can be no use or propriety in petitioning the supreme court for a writ of certiorari to quash the record of the commissioners. Until the proceedings are closed, it cannot be known that there will be any error in the record requiring it to be quashed. What may appear to be an error in the earlier proceedings may be corrected in the later proceedings, so that ultimately there will be no error in the record. Besides, every objection that may be made on the petition for writ of certiorari, may be taken on the appeal, and there can be no possible benefit in prosecuting the former while the latter is pending. Goodwin v. County Commissioners, 60 Maine, 328.

Exceptions overruled.

Petition, dismissed.

Appleton, C. J., Dickerson, Barrows, Daneorth and Peters, JJ., concurred.