Chap. 0281 An Act providing for the submission to arbitration of the demands of george clapp and frederick k. ballou against the commonwealth.

Be it enacted, &c, as follows:

Section 1. The harbor commissioners of the Commonwealth are hereby authorized to sign and acknowledge before a justice of the peace, in the name and behalf of the Commonwealth, an agreement with George Clapp and Frederick K. Ballou, both of Boston in the county of Suffolk, copartners under the style of Clapp and Ballou, to be signed and acknowledged before a justice of the peace by said Clapp and Ballou, for the submission of the demands of said Clapp and Ballou against the Commonwealth in their own original right, and as the assigns of the Rockport Granite Company of Massachusetts, heretofore presented to the governor and council, to the determination of Dwight Foster of Boston in the county of Suffolk, Charles U. Cotting of Brookline in the county of Norfolk and Jonathan A. Lane of said Boston as arbitrators, the unanimous award of whom being made and reported within one year from the passage of this act to the supreme judicial court for the county of Suffolk, the judgment of said court thereon shall be final; and said agreement of submission may provide that the arbitrators shall determine by whom the costs and expenses of such arbitration shall be borne, and determine all questions of costs, and subject to approval and allowance by said court, the fees of the arbitrators.
Section 2. The award of said arbitrators made and returned to the supreme judicial court for the county of Suffolk as provided in this act, may be acted on by said court or any justice thereof in term time or in vacation, and said court may accept, or reject, or recommit said award, or take such other action concerning the same as the court may take in relation to awards of arbitrators made under the one hundred and forty-seventh chapter of the General Statutes, reserving to either party the right of appeal from the decision of a single justice upon any matter of law.
Section 3. Upon the entry of final judgment upon said award by said court or any justice thereof as herein before provided, the governor shall draw his warrant for the amount, if any, which said Clapp and Ballon shall be found entitled to recover of said Commonwealth ; and the same shall be paid to said Clapp and Ballon out of the treasury of the Commonwealth.
Section 4. In case any vacancy shall occur by reason of the death, resignation or disability of any arbitrator, or other cause, his place may be supplied by any person whom the said Clapp and Ballon, or the survivor of them, and the harbor commissioners of the Commonwealth may in writing agree upon ; and thereupon the arbitration shall proceed, and the award shall have the same effect and validity as though such substituted arbitrator had been originally named as such in the agreement of submission.
Section 5.   This act shall take effect upon its passage.
Approved May 17, 1878.