Case ID: walker_2/html/0506-01.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

PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD CO.’S APPEAL.
    A report of viewers to assess damages caused by the construction of a railroad may be referred back to them for the correction of a clerioal error.
    Appeal from the Common Pleas of Chester County.
    This was a proceeding on the part of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to straighten their line of railroad.
    The viewers made the following report:
    
      To the Honorable Judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County-:
    
    We, the subscribers, appointed to view and assess the damages referred to in the annexed order, having met at the time and place appointed, all parties interested having been duly notified thereof, and being qualified according to law, proceeded to view the premises where the damages are alleged to have been, or are likely to be sustained and having due regard thereto and making just allowance for the advantages which may have resulted, or which may seem likely to result to the said owners of lands or materials respectively, in consequence of the opening or making of said railroad, or the construction of works connected therewith, and after having made a fair and just comparison of said advantages and disadvantages, we have estimated and determined the quantity and value of the lands so taken or occupied or to be so taken and occupied, all of which are of good quality, and assess the damages done or likely to be done thereto, as set forth opposite the names of the respective owners, and we annex a plot or draft of the route of said railroad, and- the lands so taken and occupied or to be occupied thereby.
    
      
      
    
    And subsequently the following.supplementary report:
    We, the undersigned, viewers to. assess and fix the damages. done certain, persons by reason of the straightening of the Pennsylvania Railroad from a point in land of Thomas S. Young in Cain Township, Chester County, to a point in land of 'James Sheridan, in the Borough'of Coatesville, did make report of our award in the aforesaid matter in March, which report not being fully understood, we here desire to say that the damages done ■each person named in our aforesaid report, is the value of the land as marked in its column, tó be added to the whole amount of damages as marked in its column. To explain more fully; we take the case of Thomas S. Young in the column headed “Its value,” we mark the value of Thomas S. Young’s land $170, in the co lumn marked whole amount of damages we ’mark Thomas 33. Young’s damages $6,000. Now our intention was that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company should pay Thomas S. Young $6,170, and after the same manner of adding the value of land taken in each case to the whole amount of damages in each case are the others named in our before mentioned report to be paid.
    The following affidavit was filed:
    In the matter of the assessment of damages done by the Penna. R. R. Co. to the lands of Robt. Young, etal. in Cain and Coatesville. Chester County, ss:
    
    Robert Young, being duly affirmed says, that in the report of the jury, the damages intended to be awarded to' himself and others, are assessed in two columns, one headed “its value,” and the other “whole amount of damages,” and as shown by supplementary report filed at the same time that the report was filed, to wit, June 19th, 1876, it appears the jury intended to award to the affiant, and the other landholders, the sum of said two columns opposite their respective names. Robert Younu.
    This report was recommitted to the jury, who made the following amended report:
    Having made report to said Court of our proceedings, on the nineteenth day of June last, and said report having been recommitted to us for the amendment of clerical errors in said report, do respectfully' report that the damages done to each person named in our former report, is the value of the land taken, as set forth in the column marked “its value,” added to the amount set cut opposite the name of each of said persons in the column marked “whole amount of damages,” and such addition -will show the actual amount of damage sustained by each of said persons, as will appear by the folio-wing annexed schedule :
    
      
    
    
      The first report, as appears by it, was prepared by the counsel for the railroad in his own handwriting. It was placed in the hands of the jury fully written out and filled up, except the last two columns of the schedule of damages, where the viewers were expected to place in figures the dollars of value and damages. Even the names of the claimants, and the amount of their respective lots, as determined by the railroad engineers’ survey, were written out when the jury received this report to be finished by them.
    Same day Judge Clayton filed the following opinion:
    “The report of the jury assessing damages to the lands of Thomas S. Young,'James M. Beale and the widow and and heirs of Benjamin I. Y. Miller is set aside. The balance of the report .as to other assessments of damages, as amended by the jury, is ■confirmed absolutely.”
    The Railroad Company then took an appeal and assigned the following errors:
    1. The Court erred in recommitting the report of the viewers for alteration.
    2. There was no allegation or proof that any “clerical” error had been committed b'y the viewers.
    3. No exception to the report of the viewers was filed by any of the land owners.
    4. The viewers had. no power to make a “supplementary report,” and the Court erred in permitting it to be filed.
    5. The affidavit of Robert Young was not filed until nearly three months after the report of viewers was filed.
    6. The Court erred in confirming the amended report of the viewers.
    7. They erred in not setting aside the whole proceedings. •
    
      Wm. Darlington, Esq., for appellant,
    cited Coleman vs. Lukens, 3 Wr. S. 43; Etter vs. Edwards, 4 Watts 65; Commonwealth vs. Maris, 4 S. & R. 81; Walters vs Junkins, 16 S. & R. 414; Reitenbaugh vs. Ludwick, 31 Pa. 141; Wolfran vs. Eyster, 7 Watts 39.
    
      Messrs. J. S. Futhey, W. B. Waddell, W. M. Hayes and R. J. Monaghan, Esqs., contra,
    cited Snyder vs. Hoffman, 1 Bin. 44; Dennis vs. Barber, 4 Bin. 484; Shaw vs. Pearce, 4 Bin. 485; Thompson vs. Warder, 4 Yeates 336; Bowers vs. Worrell, 1 Browne 170; Christmas vs. Thompson, 3 S. & R. 134; Gratz vs. Phillips, 14 S. & R. 152; Kidd vs. Emmett, 72 Pa. 150; Hestop vs. Brush, 2 W. N. C. 271.
   The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Common Pleas on March 28, 1877, in the following opinion:

Per Curiam.

We think that the amendment in this case was substantially ■of a clerical error. If we assume that in point of fact the viewers did write down, and did intend to report the last column of figures in the table of damages as the whole amount of damages found by them for the persons opposite whose names respectively these sums appear, the amendment would be not of a clerical error. But when we find both from the inspection of the paper and the affidavits on which the amendment was permitted that the paper was a previously written form, prepared by the counsel of the Railroad Company, and laid before the jurors, with ruled columns and headings under which the results were to be stated, we can see how easily the viewers, by a misunderstanding of the structure of the table, could misconstrue the intent of the headings, and suppose that the last column was to be ■used for damages as -independent of the value of the lands, and that in the ultimate settlement of each claim the value and the •damages would be paid together to each claimant. This was clearly a mistake of the writing itself, and therefore clerical. This mistake is made manifest from the face of the paper. There being five instances in which the sum in the column headed ■“whole amount of damages” is less than the valuation of the land in the preceding column. This discrepency shows that the greater sum in the valuation column could be no part of the less sum in the damages column.

Proceedings affirmed.