262 Mass. 527 | Mass. | 1928
The questions displayed on this record arise on a petition for the registration of land. The respondent has moved that the petitioner’s exceptions be dismissed. The cause alleged is that, after a hearing on the merits and in the absence of counsel, the judge of the Land Court filed a “memorandum and order” on the fourteenth day of July, 1927,
The saving or claim of an exception and the filing of a bill of exceptions are two separate steps in ordinary practice and procedure. But there is nothing in the nature of things incompatible in combining them in one written instrument. The provisions of said § 1 as to the making of rules governing procedure in the Land Court, and of said § 15 as to the manner of taking questions of law from the Land Court to the Supreme Judicial Court, must be construed as in harmony and as giving effect to each. The rule of the Land Court already quoted is reasonable. Lawrence v. Board of Registration in Medicine, 239 Mass. 424, 427. It was duly adopted and approved. It governed the present procedure. The motion to dismiss must be denied.
The petition for registration relates to land in the town of Barnstable. It was before us in 256 Mass. 331, where it was decided that, the starting point for the lines in dispute having been found to be a stone monument, and the deed lines having been found capable of location on the ground with mathematical exactness with reference to this stone monument, the boundary must be located in accordance with such deed lines as described by courses and distances. The case came on for hearing in the Land Court after rescript. The judge of that court correctly interpreted his duty under the rescript. He then proceeded to state some of the evidence and to describe the boundary line, and concluded in these words: “I find That the boundary lines located in accordance with the deed lines as described by courses and distances in the deed of 1878 starting from the stone monu
There is nothing in this record to indicate that the boundary lines as thus described are not correct and in accordance with the deed and located upon the ground with mathematical exactness in conformity to the courses and distances given in the deed.
We are unable to perceive any question of law in the various requests for rulings presented by the petitioner. They all appear to us to relate to matters of fact. Engineering theories as to the extent of the “variation of the compass, or magnetic, north from the true north,” and as to the correct method of calculation of courses contained in instruments of divers dates and used with respect to land geographically distant from Boston, where it seems to be assumed that observations have been made, present no question of law. Where a line or lines described by specified courses and distances may fall upon the face of the earth or may be delineated upon a plan, is not a question of law but a matter of fact. Counsel for the petitioner has argued his contentions with great earnestness. But it would serve no useful purpose to examine his contentions one by one, because they are all resolved into disputes of fact and do not present any question of law. The record fails to show that the judge adopted erroneous principles of law as guides to his findings of fact, or reached unsound conclusions of fact in locating the controverted boundary lines.
Respondent’s motion to dismiss exceptions denied.
Petitioner’s exceptions overruled.