48 Pa. Super. 32 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1911
Opinion by
The plaintiff brings this action of trespass against the county of Cumberland to recover damages for injury to her land alleged to have resulted from the change of grade of a public road upon which the land abutted. The road in question was an old township road located in East Pennsboro township and its improvement was undertaken and completed by the state highway department, under the provisions of the Act of May 1, 1905, P. L. 318, which entered into a contract with Hafer & Co. to do the work, in the year 1907. There was no change in the location of the road in front of plaintiff’s property. None of her land was taken but the grade of the road in front of the land was raised several feet and it is agreed in a case stated that the property of the plaintiff was damaged as a consequence of this change of grade. The actual change in grade in front of plaintiff’s property was not made until some months after June 8, 1907. The act of May 1, 1905, had, in its ninth and sixteenth sections, made provision for the payment, among other things, of damages resulting from the change of grade of highways improved under that statute and provided a remedy for the ascertainment and recovery of such damages, the same to be paid by the counties in the first instance and ultimately seventy-five per cent of the amount to be paid by the state, twelve and one-half per cent by the county, and twelve and one-half per cent by the township. These sections of the statute were amended by the Act of June 8, 1907, P. L. 505, and the statute as thus amended contains no provision giving the right of compensation to owners of land injured by a change of grade of the road, or fur
The question presented involves the consideration of the powers, duties and liabilities of a county in relation to a township road, within the county, improved by the state highway department, under the provisions of the act of 1905. Counties, in Pennsylvania, are recognized as quasi corporations upon which duties wholly involuntary are imposed. They possess no power and can incur no obligations not authorized by statute: Bucher v. Northumberland County, 209 Pa. 618. When counties are "invested with the privilege of taking private property for public use,” the constitutional provision requires them
The road with which we are now dealing was one of the general system of highways of the commonwealth, a township road, the property of the commonwealth, and the burden of keeping it in repair had been by law imposed upon the township. The county in its corporate capacity had nothing to do with it, save the authority conferred
The judgment is reversed and judgment is now entered in favor of the defendant with costs.