Clement v. Wichita & Southwestern Railway Co.
Clement v. Wichita & Southwestern Railway Co.
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
“And afterward, on the 1st day of July, 1887, we caused to be published in the Sumner County Standard, a newspaper published in said Sumner county, a notice, of which the following is a copy.”
Then follows a copy of a notice fixing the 30th day of July, 1887, at 9 o’clock A. m., as the time when they would proceed to lay off the route, etc. This notice is dated, at the bottom, the 28th day of June, 1887, and signed by the commissioners. The report then proceeds:
“ Which said notice was published for 30 days before the time fixed for proceeding to lay off said route, and afterward, and on, to wit, the 30th day of July, 1887, at the time and place mentioned in said notice aforesaid, we met, organized, and adjourned to meet at the same place on the 3d day of August, 1887.”
The individual view of the writer is, that the fair and reasonable construction of the commissioners’ report is, that the notice was written out, dated and signed by the commissioners on the 28th day of June; that it was first published in the newspaper on the 1st day of July — only 29 days before the board convened; that the subsequent recital that it was first published for 30 days before the time fixed for laying off the route is not sufficient to overcome the statement that it was published on the 1st day of July; that the two taken together show that the commissioners committed an error in their computation of time by including both the day of ,the first publication and of the meeting of the commissioners to condemn the land. It is not shown whether the Sumner County Standard was a daily paper or a weekly paper. If it was a weekly paper, then, if the recital that it was published on the 1st of July is true, it follows that a notice dated the 28th day of June could not have been published 30 days before the 30th day of July. It is claimed that no question was raised on the trial as to the sufficiency of the notice, but that the contention there was, that the rights of the mortgagee could not be cut off by the condemnation proceedings without compensation having been awarded to him, and that this position was abandoned because of the decision
Concurring Opinion
I concur in the affirmance of the judgment of the district court, for the reasons stated in the foregoing opinion and several others. If the notice referred to was not published for 30 days before the time fixed for laying off the right-of-way, as stated in the official report of the commissioners, it could have been shown by plaintiff below, outside of the written report. Upon the judgment rendered, and the action of the commissioners, all the presumptions are favorable to the regularity of the proceedings of condemnation, and, in the absence of any evidence aliimde the written report, it cannot be said the proceedings were irregular. ' If there was any evidence existing showing that the requisite notice was not given, it is strange it was not offered upon the trial, after the report was received as prima facie evidence. (19 Am. & Eng. Encyc. of Law, 42-50; Muir v. City of Glasgow Bank, 4 L. R. App. Cas. 356; Knox Co. v. National Bank, 147 U. S. 91—97; also, Goodrich v. Comm’rs of Atchison Co., 47 Kas. 355.) If the Sumner County Standard was a daily paper, there was sufficient time from the 28th of June for the 30 days’ publication before the 30th day of July, and the record contains the positive statement that the notice was published 30 days before July 30, 1887.
Again, it would be unfair to the trial court to dispose of this ease in this court upon the insufficiency of the notice, if that matter was not presented on the trial.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.