Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad v. Wallace
Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad v. Wallace
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered, by
— The act to incorporate the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad Company, in providing a mode of estimating the damages to the land through which it passes, directs that appraisers shall be appointed, who, after being duly sworn, shall consider the benefit as well as injury which the owner shall sustain by reason of such railroad, and shall forthwith return their appraisement of damages to the clerk of the proper court, “ setting forth the value of the property taken, or damages done to the property, the amount of benefit conferred, and the difference between the damages done to the property taken, which they assess to such owner or owners separately, to be by him filed and recorded.”
The directions of the act, so far from being directory merely, are as mandatory as language can make them. The assessors are imperatively commanded, not as heretofore in other acts, not only to consider, in their estimate of damages, the benefit as well as injury which the owner has sustained, but to spread on the face of their report, and make it part of the award, not only the value of the property taken, or the damages done to it, but specifically to set forth the benefit, if any, accruing to the owner from the railroad, and the difference between the damages done to the property taken. The object of the legislature, evidently, is to put an end to lumping estimates of the compensation to which the owner
Award set aside.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad Co. versus Wallace
- Status
- Published