194 Pa. 348 | Pa. | 1900
Opinion by
In this case a street car company had laid its tracks on the bottom of a cut through the plaintiff’s land, and this cut was the space covered by the route of a street called Edgerton avenue. Edgerton avenue was never laid out by the city, and was in fact never opened. But Homewood avenue was laid out by the city, and covered the same ground as Edgerton avenue, and was ordered to be opened by city ordinance, approved by the mayor September 18,1896. Viewers were appointed to assess damage and benefits under the act of 1891, and they reported no damage and no special benefits. From this report the plaintiff appealed and demanded a jury trial. The jury found a verdict for the
It was proved without any question that a cut had been made through the property some years before by a street railroad company which laid a railroad at the bottom of the cut which was about thirteen feet below the surface, and further on had made a fill some eight or ten feet high to continue the grade. This was the condition iii which the city found the property when Home-wood avenue was laid out and ordered to be opened. Nothing had ever been done to lower the property nor to fill it to the grade of the railroad. The city established the grade of the sti-eet through the cut, about nine feet lower at the deepest point, and about four feet higher at the highest point, than the grade of the railroad.
The undisputed evidence showed that the plaintiff’s land, containing about twenty-two acres, was very irregular in its shape on the surface. At some points it was much higher than the adjacent streets and at other points it was much lower, and in
Judgment affirmed.