180 Pa. 296 | Pa. | 1897
Opinion by
The seventh point submitted by defendant was in the following words: “ If the jury believe that the land on Allen’s lane was not, at the time the paving was done, cut up into compact city lots, nor built upon as city lots, then the defendant’s lot is not liable to be charged by the foot front rule of assessment and the plaintiff cannot recover, the verdict should be for the defendant.” The learned court below affirmed this point thus directing the jury to find a verdict in favor of the defendant, if, at the time the paving was done, the land on Allen’s lane was not cut up into compact city lots, nor built upon as city lots. The time was fixed as the time when the paving was doné, and the character of the improvements was designated as cutting into compact city lots or being built upon as city lots. These considerations constituted the test, as fixed by the defendant herself, of liability to assessment for street paving. The same test, so far as the time was concerned, was also emphatically stated in the ruling of the court upon a question of the admissibility of certain testimony offered. When the witness Josephus Yeakle was on the stand he was asked, “ Q. At how much was it (the lot in question) assessed in 1889, if you know?
Other questions were asked, and other attempts were made, to prove the assessment made in 1889, but all were rejected on the same ground, to wit, that the time at which the character of the property was to be considered as to liability to assessment for the paving, was the time when the contract was made and the work done, and not the time when the ordinance was passed. These rulings constitute the basis of many assignments of error, but as they were made in precise accordance with the decision of this court in the case of Keith v. City, 126 Pa. 575, those assignments cannot be sustained. A careful examination of the opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Clark in that case convinces us that it sustains the syllabus in which it is distinctly stated that the question of liability of the property in question depends upon the conditions existing at the time when the improvement is made, and not at the time when the ordinance authorizing it is enacted. This disposes of the fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, eleventh, twelfth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second, twenty-third and twenty-fourth specifications of error, all of which are dismissed.
The property of the plaintiff which was charged with the assessment for paving was a lot two hundred and forty feet square containing a little more than one acre. There was erected on it a building in which the defendant kept a store, and also a stable used in connection with the store business. Some com, potatoes and other vegetables were raised upon it for family use, and some beans were sold. In tins connection some plowing and harrowing were done. Whether this constituted it a farm property, or whether it was to be regarded as city property, was the principal question in the case, and it was left to the jury to decide. The learned judge charged the jury as follows on this subject: “ And as counsel suggested to you,
The first, second, third and twenty-sixth specifications of error are without merit. They call in question the validity of the contract for the paving work in question because it was signed on behalf of the city by the mayor and not by the department of public works. If the matter of signature were a jurisdictional fact, so that the contract would be void if not signed by a particularly designated officer, there would be controlling force in the objection : Erie City v. Moody, 176 Pa. 478. But there is no such provision in the legislation or in the ordinance which authorized this work to be done. The Act of 1885, article 14, P. L. 37, does direct that “ All contracts relating to city affairs shall be in writing signed and executed in the name of
Judgment affirmed.