11 Me. 263 | Me. | 1834
at the term held in Cumberland, by adjournment in August following, delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an application to this Court for a mandamus to the York County Commissioners, to compel them to accept the report of a certain committee which had been agreed upon by the said proprietors and the agent of the town of Kennebunk, pursuant to the first section of chapter 118, of the revised statutes, to estimate the damages sustained by said proprietors by the laying out of a highway in said town over their land; which report the said Commissioners, on presentment of it for acceptance, refused to accept, for reasons by them assigned, and appearing on the certified proceedings of the Commissioners now before us. The 4th section of the act above mentioned requires that the return or report of such committee shall be made under their hands and seals, to the Commissioners, and be by them accepted and recorded. The validity and legal effect of the report depend on the acceptance of it; of course, we must presume that it was never intended that such acceptance should be the necessary consequence of its presentment for that purpose ; for, if so, it could be of no use ; but that they should exercise a sound discretion of a judicial character in deciding on the question of acceptance, as the Court of Common Pleas do on deciding on the question of acceptance of a report of referees. In such cases the law requires an acceptance, and in the same language as is used in the 4th section before mentioned. The very idea of a power to accept a report seems to imply a power to refuse to accept it, if circumstances render an acceptance improper. Such a power ought to reside somewhere. Suppose that the committee, in such a case as the present, could be proved to have acted corruptly in forming their report, or to have committed a gross mistake, must the Commissioners, at all events, accept the report, contrary to
Writ denied,