Court Opinion

ID: 9648140
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:04:32.387073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:56.637176
License: Public Domain

On Request for Permission to Reargue
Per Curiam
after an extension of time previously granted, the appellants Hunter have petitioned to reargue this appeal on the claim the Court overlooked certain issues of fact and law which should change the result previously reached. The main thrust of the motion is directed to claimed shortages in the consideration of the issue of necessity at the public hearings conducted by the state highway board required by 19 VSA § 222 (c). It is there provided:
(c) For the purpose of receiving suggestions and recommendations before expending public money for engineering and condemnation, before arriving at its judgment as required in paragraph (a) the board shall conduct a .public hearing upon not less than thirty days’ notice published in a newspaper having general circulation in the area affected and upon notice by mail to the legislative body of the municipalities affected and upon notice by registered mail to owners of lands and rights therein affected by the judgment.
The notice shall set forth the purpose for which the land or rights are desired and shall generally describe the improvement to be made.
At the hearing the board shall set forth its reasons for the selection of the route intended and shall hear and consider all objections, suggestions for changes and recommendations made by any person interested.
Following the hearing the board shall proceed to lay out the highway, and it shall cause to be surveyed the land to be.taken or affected, giving due and proper consideration to the objections, suggestions and recommendations.
The explicit object of the hearings required by this section is to bring to the attention of the highway board the objections of the land*519owners, the municipalities involved and the public at large to the contemplated construction. The board must hear their suggestions and recommendations for changes in the proposed highway before the actual survey of the land proposed to be taken for the project.
When the appellants complain of the alleged inadequacy of the investigation and the failure of the highway board to make findings, they mistake the nature of the proceedings called for by section 222. They are exploratory and informative, but not judicial. The highway board is not conducting a trial or hearing as a court or judicial body. Am. Oil Co. v. State Hwy. Bd., 122 Vt. 496, 501, 177 A.2d 358.
The deficiencies set out in the motion ■ for reargument indicate the appellant conceives the public hearings to be judicial in character. On the question of necessity, the board’s decision is essentially administrative, not judicial. Final adjudication to determine necessity is reserved to the special statutory tribunal created to hear and order necessity. 19 V.S.A. §225-7. Jurisdiction on the question of public necessity can be invoked only by petition of the board to a superior judge. 19 V.S.A. § 224. And on this question, the board participates only as litigant and interested party.
The points advanced in the motion for reargument concern administrative functions, preliminary to the adjudication of the issue of necessity. They are outside the scope of this appeal from the tribunal charged with first responsibility for decision on that crucial question.

Request for leave to reargue denied. Let full entry go down.