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COMPTON v. THE SUSQUEHANNA RAIL ROAD.
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COMPTON v. THE SUSQUEHANNA RAIL ROAD.
At common law an inquisition under a writ of ad quod damnum most be token be-
fore the property of a citizen can be entered upon and taken from him for a public
use.—Under the acts incorporating road and canal companies, unless otherwise
provided, the damages may be assessed either before or after the property has
been taken; except where, by an admixture, the value would be so obscured as
to prevent the jury from making a fair valuation from their own view.—But no
unreasonable delay or fraud in taking the inquisition will be suffered.
THIS bill was filed on the 17th of May, 1831, by Thomas Comp-
ton against The Baltimore and Susquehanna Rail Road Company,
George Winchester, William Gibbs McNeill, Charles Cheesborough,
and William Stall. The bill states that this body politic, by their
agents, and particularly by the other defendants, entered upon the
lands of the plaintiff, cut down his trees, and dug up his garden,
meadows, fields, grass, and grain; and have so entirely destroyed
his right of way that he cannot enter upon and depart from his
lands as he was wont and has a right to do; that the company
have neglected and refused to cause a jury to be summoned to as-
sess the damages he has and is likely to sustain by their acts; that
a pretended inquisition has been taken by a jury convened under a
warrant issued by a person who was not in fact at the time a jus-
tice of the peace; that the supposed inquisition is defectively exe-
cuted in form and substance, and is invalid and void; and that its
return has been improperly withheld and delayed at the instance of
the corporation; and when returned, a decision upon it was un-
justly caused to be postponed by the body politic. Whereupon
tie bill prayed, that the company might be restrained by injunc-
tion from committing any further injury to his lands, &c.
17th May, 1831.—BLAND, Chancellor.—Ordered, that writs of
subpaena and injunction issue as prayed by the foregoing bill of
complaint. And it is further Ordered, that at any time after the
filing of the answers of the defendants, the court will hear a
motion to dissolve the said injunction; Provided, that the de-
fendants give to the plaintiff or his solicitor, five days notice
thereof. And the Register is directed to endorse a copy of this
order on the writ of injunction, that it may be served therewith
on the defendants.
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To this bill Isaac M. Cheesborough, called in the bill Charles
Cheesborough, and the other defendants, put in their joint and seve-
ral answer, on the 30th of May, 1831, in which they stated that the
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