133 Pa. 234 | Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County | 1890
Opinion,
No complaint is made by the defendant company of the instructions to the jury on the question of damages, and our inquiry is limited to alleged error in the admission of evidence.
The plaintiff was the lessee of a wharf property on the Schuylkill river, in Philadelphia, extending from the river to Twenty-fourth street. It was leased to him as a coal wharf and yard. Upon it he carried on the business of receiving, storing, and delivering coal for other parties, and of receiving, storing, and selling coal and sand on his own- account. The appliances used in the business, and necessary to carry it on, belonged to him.
In January, 1886, the defendant company entered and located its road upon the demised premises, appropriating for that purpose a strip of land sixty feet in width, and dividing the property into two parts. The sheds, runs, and other appliances, indispensable to the business for which the property was leased, were partially destroyed by this action of the company, and the construction of new ones, adapted to the changed condition, became necessary in order to continue the business. A bridge, with a single span of sixty-eight feet, and an elevation of twenty-one feet above the railroad tracks, and a derrick, sheds, and runs of a corresponding height, were required. The company recognized the necessity for these appliances as the direct consequence of the location of its railroad, and admits that it promised the plaintiff to construct them, but excuses its nonperformance on the ground that it could not agree with him as to the details of the work. In other words, the plaintiff want
It is well settled that the proper measure of damages is the depreciation in the market value of the property, caused by the location and construction of the railroad. But the elements to be considered in the ascertainment of this depreciation are as varied as the properties affected, and the uses to which they are applied. A specification of all these elements is impossible, because they cannot be anticipated, and many of them remain to be developed in the course of the litigation consequent upon the taking of property by eminent domain. In the ordinary case of the appropriation of land for railroad purposes, the opinions of witnesses who are conversant with the property, and the general selling price of land in the vicinity, are received on the question of its value unaffected by the road, and its value as affected by it. But this is not exclusive of other, and in some cases better, methods of proof. It may be stated as a general principle, applicable to cases of this sort, that whatever injuriously affects the property, as the direct and necessary result of the location of the road upon it, may be considered in the assessment of damages.
In this case, the estate of the plaintiff was limited to a particular use. Its enjoyment, in accordance with the terms of
The judgment is affirmed.