Case Name: The County Commissioners, petitioners for location of public lots, versus Spofford
Court: Maine Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Maine
Decision Date: 1849
Citations: 30 Me. 456
Docket Number: 
Parties: The County Commissioners, petitioners for location of public lots, versus Spofford.
Judges: 
Reporter: Maine Reports
Volume: 30
Pages: 456–457

Head Matter:
The County Commissioners, petitioners for location of public lots, versus Spofford.
Exceptions from the District Court, upon proceedings under a petition by the County Commissioners, for the location of public lots, cannot be sustained. The mode of correcting errors, if any, in such cases, is by certiorari.
Exceptions from the District Court, upon a petition by the County Commissioners for the location of the public lots in an unincorporated township. Spofford, the respondent, appeared to resist the location, and filed the exceptions. The petitioners moved that the exceptions be dismissed.
Cutting, for the respondent.
The Court has jurisdiction. Bridgton v. Bennett, 23 Maine, 422. Our statute allows exceptions in cases other than those according to the common law. Even if certiorari could be granted, it is not matter of right, but merely at discretion. It is therefore but an inadequate remedy.
J. Waterhouse, county attorney, for petitioners.

Opinion:
Tenney, J.
— Suppose the exceptions to be sustained, what action could this Court have in the case ? There would be no power to remit the case back to the District Court, nor to finish the proceedings here.
Wells, J.
—If there is no power to remand or to proceed; this waste of time should be avoided. Is it not like the case of highways, in which certiorari is the exclusive remedy ?
Howard, J. orally.
Exceptions do not lie. The remedy, if any, is by certiorari. Exceptions dismissed.