44 N.H. 220 | N.H. | 1860
This case comes before the court upon a bill of exceptions allowed by the judge who heard the merits thereof, and accepted the report of the board of road commissioners, laying out the road in question, May term, 1862, in this county. The chief exception of the town of Hudson is founded upon an alleged irregularity in the acts of the two road commissioners appointing Moody Hobbs as a substitute for Ephraim Weston, on the 7th day of December, 1861, three days prior to the day assigned for the hearing, and two days previous to the death of said Weston, and before any actual vacancy had occurred in the board. It appears, also, that notice of the selection or appointment of said Hobbs, and of the time and manner in which it was made, was brought to the knowledge of B. E. Emerson, Esq., who appeared as legal counsel for the town on the day of hearing, and made no objection on any account, but permitted said Hobbs to be sworn into office, and then proceeded to the consideration of the facts and merits of the petition, and the reasons against it; and, after a report is presented in favor of the petitioners, for the first tinte the town of Hudson interposes her objections to the report, and the sufficiency or power of the tribunal which tried their case, on account of the defective appointment of Hobbs as a member of the board of commissioners.
It is a well settled principle of law, that if a pai’ty who has grounds to move to set aside “ any process or proceeding of any kind,” neglect to make his application in a reasonable time after the facts have come to his knowledge, he is deemed to waive the exception by the delay, and will be forever precluded to make the objection afterward. This rule is applicable to courts of general jurisdiction as well as to inferior courts of special or limited juris
.In Kennett's Petition, 24 N. H. 139, the court say, that “objections to the jurisdiction, orto the regularity of the proceedings in petitions for highways, must be taken early, or they will be regarded as waived.” The case comes clearly within the rule, where consent will confer jurisdiction; therefore the proceedings are not void, but valid.
The exceptions are overruled.