Jenkins v. Riggs

Citations

• 59 A. 758
• 100 Md. 427
• 1905 Md. LEXIS 22

Syllabus

<p>Highways — Jurisdiction of County Commfisioners Under Statute to Close Old Road and Open New Ones — Irregularities Reviewable on Appeal and Not by Bill in Equity — Slight Deviation Between the Description in the Notice and the Einal Location of Substituted Road.</p> <p>County Commssioners have the power to open and close public roads under Code, Art. 25, sec. 1, etc., and when their action in closing a road is within their jurisdiction, mere errors or irregularities in the proceedings are reviewable upon a'ppeal to the Circuit Court; and equity will not entertain a bill for an injunction upon the allegation of the existence of such errors or irregularities.</p> <p>When County Commissioners act within their jurisdiction in.altering the location of a public road, the fact that the new road is an inadequate substitute for the old one, or that the alteration has imposed upon taxpayers the burden of maintaining additional roads without any benefit to them, are mere errors to be corrected by an appeal and do not form a foundation for a bill in equity.</p> <p>The alteration by competent authority in the location of an existing road operates as a discontinuance of such portions of the old road as are not embraced within the limits fixed for the new one, even if no formal or special order of closing or discontinuance is passed.</p> <p>The Act of 1900, ch. 685, relating to roads in Baltimore County, provides that applications for opening, altering or closing roads shall be by pe-' tition to the County Commissioners, after the petitioners shall have given a certain notice setting forth, ‘‘as near as may be,” the length, and location of the road; that counter petitions may be filed within a prescribed time; that the commissioners are authorized to determine the case as in their opinion shall seem right, and may appoint examiners to view the grounds whenever they shall deem it expedient, and that when the commissioners decide to open a road they may contract with the land own