Opinion
(July Term, 1811.)
By the act of 1784 (1 Rev. Stat., ch. 104, secs. 1-4) the interposition of a jury is necessary in the laying out, altering, or changing roads; but in deciding, in the first instance that there shall be a road in a particular section of the country, or in discontinuing such roads as may be deemed useless, the jury has nothing to do, the whole power being given to the court.
THE county court of STOKES ordered that the road crossing Dan River at Bostic's old place should be discontinued; and after this order was made Hairston ran a fence across the road, and kept it up for the space of one month and more. Carr brought a warrant to recover the penalty given by section 13 of the act of 1784. The road was discontinued without the intervention of a jury, and it is submitted to the Supreme Court to decide whether, as the order for discontinuing the road was not founded upon the report of a jury, the same be valid and effectual in law to discontinue the said road. If it be not, judgment to be entered for the plaintiff; otherwise, for the defendant.
By the act of 1784, in the laying out, altering, or changing roads the interposition of a jury is necessary; and the law has directed that damages may be assessed and the most proper grounds pointed out over which the road shall run. But in deciding, in the first instance, that there shall be a road in a particular section of the country, or in discontinuing such roads as may be deemed useless, a jury has nothing to do; the whole power is given to the court. We therefore think the order of the county court, discontinuing the road in question, is a legal one, and such as the court might well have made. It follows, therefore, that the defendant is entitled to judgment.