Grigsby v. Burtnett

By the Court, Currey, C. J.: The object of this action was to obtain a decree of the Court annulling and setting aside certain orders made by the Board of Supervisors of Napa County, declaring a road, laid out over the land of the plaintiff, a public highway, and directing the Road Master to open the same; and to restrain the defendants and all persons acting under them from opening said road and from removing plaintiff’s fences for that purpose.

An application was made by the requisite number of citizens of the county for the location of a highway, which in its course passed through the plaintiff’s land. In due time and in due form the plaintiff made application for damages, in the sum of one thousand dollars, w'hich he would sustain in consequence' of the location of the road upon his land. Road Viewers were thereupon appointed by the Board of Supervisors, as required by the statute, (Laws 1861, p. 389,) who reported, among other things, in favor of laying out the contemplated highway, and the damages which the plaintiff would sustain thereby to be four hundred and fifty dollars. The plaintiff expressed himself dissatisfied with this award of damages, and, instead of the sum reported by the Viewers, demanded one thousand dollars. He and the Board of Supervisors were unable to agree as to the amount of damages which he should receive.? After this the Board accepted the report of the Viewers, and declared the road, as laid out and [408]surveyed by them, a public highway, and ordered that four hundred and fifty dollars be paid to the plaintiff from the General Road Fund, and that the Road Master of the proper district open the road, etc. Within ten days thereafter the plaintiff commenced an action against the county by name for the damages which he had insisted he should be paid, and that action was pending in the District Court, undetermined when this action was commenced.

The defendants by answer pleaded a tender, before this suit was brought, to the plaintiff of the four hundred and fifty , dollars awarded. Upon the trial of the issue joined the Court decided that the road described in the complaint was declared a public highway by the Board of Supervisors of Napa County in February, 1866, and that the plaintiff had been awarded by the Board the sum of four hundred and fifty dollars, as damages consequent upon the establishment of said road, and that that sum in United States gold coin had been’ tendered to the plaintiff prior, to the commencement of this suit, and that the plaintiff was not entitled to the relief sought by him or to any relief whatever, and therefore the complaint was dismissed. The plaintiff made an application for a new trial, which was denied.