228 Pa. 487 | Pa. | 1910
Opinion by
As early as 1860, the plaintiff, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Company, then operating an established line of road, anticipating possible future wants purchased a narrow strip of land 700 feet in length by seventy-five in width, adjoining its right of way in the village of Tobyhanna. The lot in dispute here is part of that purchase. When the railroad company recently attempted to make use of the lot, it was found to be in possession of the defendant company. To recover possession this ejectment was brought. On the trial of the case, the plaintiff showed a paper title which the court adjudged sufficient in law to establish a prima facie right. The defendant in reply set up a claim of title by adverse possession in itself and predecessors for more than twenty-one years.’ The evidence offered to establish such claim was objected to, on the ground that title to land purchased by a railroad company and necessary for its purposes cannot be acquired by adverse possession, however long continued. The objection was sustained and the evidence excluded, with the result that a verdict was rendered for the plaintiff. The appeal from the judgment thus obtained, raises two questions: first, was the evidence offered by plaintiff sufficient to establish a prima facie right? second, was the evidence offered by defendant to show title by adverse possession properly excluded? The first calls for little discussion. A link in plaintiff’s chain of title was a treasurer’s deed which recited the sale for taxes of a larger tract of unseated land embracing the lot in dispute. When the deed was offered it was objected that no assessment of the land as unseated had been shown; that the deed was not competent evidence to establish such fact, and that without an assessment the deed was invalid. The trial judge was of opinion that, inasmuch as
The other question calls for somewhat fuller discussion, since we cannot concur in the view expressed by the learned trial judge in his opinion filed in overruling the motion for a new trial. The real question in the case covers much less ground than does the objection urged in the court below to the offer of the evidence. It needs to be defined. It is not whether title to any land purchased by a railroad company can be acquired by adverse possession; but whether title to land purchased by a railroad company, outside its right of way, for railroad purposes, generally, not present but prospective, can be so acquired. It was assumed by the court below that land acquired by a railroad for what is understood as right of way, is not subject to the statute of limitations; and because certain