3]

[2] Pub. St. c. 49, Sec. 94.

[3] 128 Mass. 63.

The proper town or city authorities have jurisdiction to lay out or
alter ways within the limits of their respective cities or towns,
and to order specific repairs thereon. The county commissioners have
also jurisdiction to lay out public ways, the termini of which are
exclusively within the same town; and they are also clothed with
authority to lay them out from town to town. Hence roads may be
either town ways or public highways. When the proceedings for their
location originate with the town or city officials, they are town
ways; and when the proceedings originate with the county
commissioners, they are public highways.[4] Suppose a new road is
wanted, or an alteration in an old one is desired, within the limits
of a town, a petition therefor may be presented either to the town
authorities or to the county commissioners. If the proposed road is
not situated entirely within the limits of one town or city, then
the commissioners alone have jurisdiction in the premises. When the
selectmen or road commissioners of a town decide to lay out a new
road, or to alter an old one, their doings must be reported and
allowed at some public meeting of the inhabitants regularly warned
and notified therefor; but while the inhabitants are vested with the
right of approval, they have no right to vote that the selectmen or
road commissioners shall lay out a particular way, as it is the
intention of the statute that these officials shall exercise their
own discretion upon the subject.[5] If the town authorities
unreasonably refuse or neglect to lay out a way, or if the town
unreasonably refuses or delays to approve and allow such way as laid
out or altered by its officials, then the parties aggrieved thereby
may, at any time within one year, apply to the county commissioners,
who have authority to cause such way to be laid out or altered. But
when a petition for a public way is presented in the first instance
to the county commissioners, or when the matter is brought before
them by way of appeal, their decision on the question of the public
necessity and convenience of such way is final, and from it there is
no appeal. If damage is sustained by any person in his property by
the laying out, alteration, or discontinuance of a public way, he is
entitled to receive just and adequate damages therefor, to be
assessed, in the first place, by the town or city authorities or by