Case Name: First Church in Boston vs. City of Boston
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1859-11
Citations: 14 Gray 214
Docket Number: 
Parties: First Church in Boston vs. City of Boston.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 80
Pages: 214–216

Head Matter:
First Church in Boston vs. City of Boston.
Under a petition on Rev. Sts. c. 24, § 55, for taking for a street certain land described by metes and bounds, damages may be recovered for injury thereby resulting to adjoining land of the petitioner.
Petition to the superior court of Suffolk, under Rev. Sts, c. 24, § 55, for the assessment of damages occasioned by the laying out of Chauncy Place in Boston as a highway. The petition alleged that the petitioners were seised in fee simple of a certain parcel of land situated in said Boston and known as Chauncy Place, and therein described by metes and bounds; that on the 2d of January 1857, after notice, the mayor and aldermen of Boston ordered that said Chauncy Place “ be laid out as a public street or way of the said city; ” that pursuant to said order, “said parcel of land was taken for said street;” and that the mayor and aldermen neglected and refused to make compensation to the petitioners “ for the taking of said land.”
At the trial by jury at November term 1857 before Huntington, J., the petitioners offered evidence tending to show that they were formerly the proprietors of a tract of land on Summer Street in Boston, by virtue of a conveyance from Richard and Ann Hollinghead, dated the 17th of December 1680; that in 1808 they erected a church on the farther side of the lot, and opened a passage way or court thereto from Summer Street, being the Chauncy Place; and afterwards sold several lots situated between the church and Summer Street, and granted certain restricted rights of way over said place to the grantees of those lots, and to the owners of estates adjacent to said place on the southerly side thereof. The defendants objected to the admission of the deed of the Hollingheads as evidence of title to any estate except Chauncy Place. But the judge admitted it; and instructed the jury “ that the petitioners were entitled to recover for the diminished market value of the whole estate, including the church building, consequent upon taking of the land, if they should find, upon the evidence in the case, that the market value of the whole estate had been thus diminished.” The jury found a verdict for the petitioners, and the respondents excepted.
J. P. Healy, (City Solicitor,) Sf Henry Freeman Smith, for the respondents.
P. W. Chandler 8f S. J. Thomas, for the petitioners.

Opinion:
Metcalf, J.
There can be no doubt that, in estimating the damage to a landowner, caused by the laying out of a public street over his land, neither the city authorities nor a jury are confined to the value of the land covered by the street. He is also entitled to the amount of the damage done to his remaining land by the laying out of the street. Commonwealth v. Coombs, 2 Mass. 492. Commonwealth v. Norfolk Sessions, 5 Mass. 437. This is not denied by the respondents; but they object that the damage done to the petitioners' remaining land cannot be recovered on this petition, which describes, by metes and bounds, the land taken for the street, and asks only for a jury to assess a compensation " for the taking of said land.'' There would have been plausibility in this objection if the petition had prayed only for compensation " for the land so taken.'' But we are of opinion that the prayer for compensation "for the taking of said land " sufficiently prays for compensation for all the damage done to the petitioners by the taking of Chauncy Place and laying out a public street over it, including the damage thereby sustained by them in their adjoining property. The deed of R. & A. Hollinghead was therefore rightly received in evidence for the purpose of proving the petitioners' ownership both of Chauncy Place and of the land adjoining; and the jury were thereupon rightly instructed.
If, in any case like this, a city or town be surprised at the trial by an unexpected claim for damages, a postponement will always be granted by the court to enable the respondents to meet such claim, as in other cases, when fairness and justice require such postponement. Exceptions overruled.
This case was argued by consent before Shaw. C. J., and Metcalf and Merrick, JJ.