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1 Wis. 127

Brooks v. Allen

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided June 15, 1853

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1853-06-15

This was an action commenced Before a Justice of the Peace, of Rock county, by Brooks against Allen, in assumpsit, for Building twelve rods of fence. The declaration was on the common counts, and also for work and labor, and materials found in Building a gravel fence, made verbally Before the justice. In the Justices’ Court the plaintiff had judgment. The defendant appealed to the Rock County Court, where the cause was tried at the term of February, A. D. 1852.

Decided 1853-06-15

¶1By the Court,

Smith, J.

¶2The County Court was doubtless led into error in this case, by supposing that the subject matter of the action fell within, and was to be controlled by chapter 14, of the Revised Statutes, concerning fences and fence viewers. The design of that chapter of the statutes, is to regulate and provide for the building and keeping in repair of division fences, and for the settlement of disputes in regard to the same. The fences contemplated by the statute, are the ordinary fences of the country, built upon agricultural lands ; not those whose character and fashion are suggested by the taste of the owners of town, village or city lots. It is possible, *130indeed, that a division fence "between town lots may fall within the purview of the statute ; but to do so, it must be a fence of the kind and description contemplated by the statute.

¶3On the trial of this cause, in the County Court, the plaintiff below offered to prove a contract between himself and the defendant below, by which the defendant employed the plaintiff to build twelve rods of partition gravel fence on the line of lot number 82, in Hackett’s Addition to Beloit, and agreed to pay him a reasonable compensation therefor, and that the plaintiff did build the gravel fence according to the contract.

¶4There could be no legal objection to the introduction of this evidence. The parties having voluntarily entered into the contract, and that contract, not being repugnant to the statute, nor incompatible with public policy, should be sustained by the court.

¶5Chapter 14 of the Revised Statutes, does not apply to such a case.

¶6The judgment of the County Court must therefore be reversed with costs.

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