67 Me. 280 | Me. | 1877
The defendants claim to hold the possession of the land demanded in this suit because they say it has been legally taken for a school-house lot by virtue of the provisions of B., S. c. 11, § 33.
That the title was previously in the plaintiff is not denied.
The case finds that after the proceedings, the validity of which is here in controversy, the defendants forthwith erected a new school-house on the lot taken, which adjoined the lot upon which the defendants’ old school-house stood, and the whole (which does not exceed forty square rods) is now inclosed with one fence and occupied by the defendants as one lot for their new school-house.
It is not reasonable to suppose that, when the legislature authorized the appropriation of a lot not exceeding forty square rods to this public use upon payment of reasonable damages to the owner, they expected the whole of the land so taken to be covered with the buildings, or designed to prohibit the use of some part of it as
Nor does the justification of the district fail because in their vote they called what was obviously a designation of a lot for the erection of their new school-house, an enlargement of their present school-house lot.
2. The plaintiff’s second objection is that the municipal officers laid out the lot, and assessed the damage at one time; and he relies upon the case of School-district in Norton v. Copeland et al. 2 Gray, 414, 416, as a decision under a similar statute favoring his view.
The case differs essentially from the one at bar. Shaw, O. J., expressly places the decision upon the want of notice from the municipal officers to the owner of the land prior to the laying out. Here, the statute notice was given. But if the dicta respecting the giving- to the land owner the opportunity to sell the particular lot to the district before proceeding to assess the damages were to be regarded as having the force of an authority, they would not apply to this case. For, here, the identical lot was designated by the district, and the case finds that the plaintiff refused to sell it. There, the district failed to fix the location, and the selectmen were called upon to determine the location ; and after laying out the lot they proceeded to assess the damages without waiting to see whether the land owner would refuse to sell the lot as laid out. Otherwise, here: the admission that the plaintiff “refused to sell the lot designated and described in the record” obviates the objection.
3. The third objection is that the doings of the selectmen in
But their return seems to have been duly made to and recorded by the clerk of the district. The remarks of Shaw, C. J., in the case above cited by plaintiff, (2 Gray, 414, 418,) are apposite. Speaking of the requirement of the statute that the laying out of a school-house lot should be conducted in the same way and manner as is provided for laying out town ways, &c., he says: “When one law thus refers to another, we must take care not to follow it into its details beyond the line where the cases are analogous. It wonl d be inconsistent with the true intent of the legislature and with the just and reasonable rules of construction to follow out the cours e referred to where the reasons of the one are not applicable to the other.”
It is plain that t he requirement is not that the proceedings in the two cases shall be literally identical; but that the course should be the same so far as the objects to be accomplished are analogous; the same, mutatis, mutandis.
We think the proper place for returning and recording the doings of selectmen in the laying out of a school-house lot for a schooi-district is the record of the district; and that this is according to the spirit of the requirement that the municipal officers shall proceed as in the laying out of town ways, the record of the district being substituted for that of the town because the returning officers are acting in a matter which concerns the district, as they are acting in a matter which concerns the town when they lay out town ways. If by the reference to the course of proceeding in laying out town ways, they are bound to make return to the town-clerk of the laying out of a school-house lot, because by c. 18, § 20, their return of the laying out of a town way is to be made and recorded there, it would seem to follow, under the same § 20, that their action could not be regarded as final until the town had accepted it at a town-meeting legally called afterwards. But, very clearly, no such action by the town is required to confirm the laying out of a school-house lot for a school-district; and we know of
We think neither of the objections to the proceedings in the laying out of the lot is tenable. Judgment for defendants.