55 Pa. Super. 28 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1913
Opinion by
The plaintiff seeks to recover substantial damages to compensate him for an injury to his building, which injury he alleges was caused by the unlawful or negligent
The plaintiff and defendant Skirboll were the owners respectively of two adjoining lots on the east side of Shiloh street in the city of Pittsburg. The rights of the plaintiff in his own property were precisely those of the defendant in his. It is not alleged that the former, by law or by contract, had acquired any easement whatever in the lot of the defendant, or any right to subject it to any servitude for his benefit. It appears the lot of the plaintiff had been improved by the erection thereon of a building. The wall of this building came within three inches of the property line common to plaintiff and defendant. The latter, having concluded to improve his property, entered into a contract with his codefendant by the terms of which the latter undertook to provide the materials and do the work necessary to construct the building according to plans and specifications prepared by an architect. The contractor began the excavation and carried it down, within the defendants’ line, to a point below the bottom of the wall of the plaintiff’s building. Apparently the plaintiff, in the construction of his improvement, had so nearly utilized all of his own ground as to leave no sufficient protection, by the use of his own land, for the building he erected. Had he any right to demand of the defendant that he so restrict his lawful use of his own property, in the construction of his building, as to furnish the support for the plaintiff’s building which the latter had not provided for himself? We can discover no such right growing out of any of the facts stated.
That the plaintiff, by virtue of his lot ownership, had the incidental right to have what is termed in the law lateral support for his lot cannot be denied. The existence of that right, its nature and its extent, have been so often
Confining our attention, as we must, to the case stated and the facts therein appearing, we are unable to find any room for the proper application of the legal principle just referred to. . We have then at the most a failure on the part of the defendants to comply with their legal duty to provide lateral support for the plaintiff’s lot. We have nothing in the case stated to show that such breach of legal duty resulted in more than the nominal damages for which the learned judge below entered judgment. We have no act done by the defendants and no fact averred on which any conclusion of malice or negligence on the part of the defendants can be predicated. The plaintiff has therefore failed to show a legal cause of action against the defendant for any injury that his building sustained, and the learned judge below was right in refusing to enter judgment for such damages. The assignments of error are overruled.
Judgment affirmed.