Case Name: David Gray vs. The Lowell & Lawrence Railroad Company
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1849-11
Citations: 4 Cush. 609
Docket Number: 
Parties: David Gray vs. The Lowell & Lawrence Railroad Company.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 58
Pages: 609–610

Head Matter:
David Gray vs. The Lowell & Lawrence Railroad Company.
Where the estimate of a petitioner’s damages, occasioned by the construction of a railroad, as made by the county commissioners, is revised by a jury, on the appli cation of the petitioner, and the amount reduced, and the verdict of the jury is accepted by the court of common pleas, neither party is entitled to recover the costs of the hearing before the jury. If, in such case, the court of common pleas award judgment for costs to the petitioner, and the respondents appeal therefrom to this court, the respondents will be entitled, on the reversal of the judgment of the court of common pleas, as to costs, to recover the costs of the appeal, and also their costs in this court.
The petitioner applied to the county commissioners to assess his damages caused by the location and construction of the respondents’ railroad over and across Lis land. At the hearing before the commissioners, at the July term, 1847, they awarded that the petitioner should recover as damages the sum of $1480, and further awarded that the respondents should build and maintain a good and substantial bridge not less than fifteen feet wide over their road, for the use of the petitioner, his heirs and assigns, and also a good and convenient farm crossing over the grade of their road near the base of the hill, From the decision of the county commissioners, the petitioner appealed and petitioned for a jury, which was ordered and met on the 18th of August, 1848, and, after hearing the case, returned a verdict for the petitioner, awarding him damages in the sum of $820, with interest from June 15th, 1847, and upon the same condition and stipulation as to building a bridge by the railroad company across the railroad, as the commissioners had made in their report.
This verdict was returned to the court of common pleas, and was accepted. Whereupon both parties claimed the costs of the hearing before the jury. The cleric taxed the costs on both sides, and the court decided, that the petitioner was entitled to recover his costs of the respondents; from which decision the respondents appealed to this court.
N. J. Lord, for the respondents.
W. D. Northend, for the petitioner.

Opinion:
Fletcher, J.
The judgment of the court of common pleas, as to costs, must be reversed. Neither party is entitled to recover the costs of the hearing before the jury. The respondents are entitled to recover,and must have judgmentfor, the costs of their appeal to this court, and for their costs in this court. This case comes so fully and precisely within the decision of this court, in the case of Commonwealth v. Boston & Maine Railroad, 3 Cush. 25, 56, that it is only necessary to refer to the opinion of the court in that case, as stating particularly and fully the grounds of the decision in this case.