Case Name: The State against Lawrence and others
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1820-05
Citations: 5 N.J.L. 850
Docket Number: 
Parties: *The State against Lawrence and others.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 5
Pages: 981–982

Head Matter:
*The State against Lawrence and others.
Where the surveyors have not court ou^ht to grant rule to why return not be set aside,
CERTIORARI to the Common Pleas of Salem, to bring up the return of a private road, and proceedings thereon, Upon the road being laid out, and the return filed, a caveat was also duly filed. At the next term of the court, the caveator applied for a rule, to shew cause, why the should not beset aside, upon the following reasong. That two of the surveyors, had not taken the oath required by law. 2. That the surveyors did not pursue the courses and distances in the application. The court refused the rule, and ordered the return' to be recorded ; whereupon this writ was prosecuted ; and Jeffers moved that the proceedings of the court be reversed, and the return set aside, for the reasons filed in the Pleas; and also, because the court refused to grant the rule, applied for by the caveator.
Matter of Public Road, 1 South. 398. (a)

Opinion:
By the Court.
The Common Pleas certainly erred, in refusing the rule asked for. The first reason assigned, has been repeatedly adjudged sufficient to set aside the return. The surveyors must take the oath required by the statute, before they'act. The return of the road must, therefore, be set aside.