16 Pa. 182 | Pa. | 1851
In the case of Mifflin, and of Heise, the opinion of the court was delivered May 27, by
In the year 1823, the legislature incorporated a company to construct a turnpike road from Columbia to Marietta, under the title of “The Columbia, Chiques, and Marietta Road and Bridge Company,” and prescribed the mode of ascertaining the damages thereby sustained by the owners of the land through which the proposed road might run. The road was accordingly made, and afterwards the then owners of the property, now in the seisin of the appellants, agreed with the company as to the value of the damages inflicted, and accepted the sum of one hundred dollars in full compensation for all injuries sustained in consequence of the road having been laid out and opened through their real property, and in full of all demands against them. Twenty-four years after this, viz. in the year 1849, an act was passed authoriz
These considerations may, and frequently do, swell the sum awarded as remunerative, far beyond the worth of the surface occupied, or reduce it to nothing. One mode of occupation may be attended with little or no inconvenience to the owner of the soil, while another may visit him with injuries of a serious character, in reference to the nature of his possessions and the manner of their enjoyment. Nay, while one species of improvement may facilitate his business or add materially to the value of his property, another may hinder the one and largely detract from or entirely destroy the other. The very case before us is illustrative of this, if any reliance can be placed in the correctness of those who measured the amount of injury severally occasioned by the turnpike and railroad. While the first was esteemed, by the parties themselves, as fully compensated by the payment of $100, for the whole line of road passing through the farm then owned by the 'Misses Bethel, the last is fixed by an inquest at fourteen hundred and eighty dollars, in reference to a part- only of the same property. A very limited knowledge and brief reflection will satisfy the inquirer that such a disparity may well occur, under the circumstances which have place here, and it demonstrates, at least, .the propriety of making provision for the payment of damages, whether the consequential injuries suffered be the result of an original construction, or flow from the supervention of a new and different work upon an old improvement. Had a railroad been originally made over the lands of the appellants, creating the injuries they now complain of, an omission to provide for remuneration to the owners would have encountered universal disapprobation. The suggestion that the damages suffered were merely consequential could not have been accepted as an answer, except, perhaps, in a discussion relative to the constitutional power of the legislature to concede the right of making such a road over private property, without stipulating for the payment of such damages. In the case of the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad Company, 6 Whar. 25, specially referred to by the court below, the distinction is pointed out between wrhat has been called consequential injuries, and direct damage suffered from actual appropriation of the land, considered in reference to the constitutional prohibition. It is there, and in other cases which follow it, said that though the General Assembly is without power to grant to a corporation the right of talcing private property for a public use without making compensation, it may
The inquiry is not whether the General Assembly might have empowered the Railroad Company to make a branch railway on the site of the turnpike, without making compensation for the incidental damages consequent upon it ? Nor is it, whether a municipal corporation in the exercise of its legitimate functions, may alter or cause the grade of streets and highways, without being accountable to the owners of the adjacent property for loss and inconvenience resulting thereupon? as it was in Green v. The Borough of Reading. It seems to be, simply, whether the legislature may annex, as a condition to the exercise of such a privilege as was here conferred, the duty of reimbursing private owners for injuries suffered by them in the promotion of the interests of a private corporation, or, if you please, of the public, and have so directed in this instance ? Upon this point, the most extreme verge to which this court has gone in favor of private corporations is to be found in the doctrine, reiterated in the last case of Coons v. The Monongahela Nav. Co., 6 Barr 379, that a company invested with the right of eminent domain is not answerable for
But other exceptions were taken ,to the finding of the inquests, which the court declined to pass upon, and which, indeed, under the opinion entertained, it was unnecessary to consider. As, however, it may be proper to inquire into the truth of these exceptions, or some of them, the record will be remitted to the court below, with a procedendo.
And now, to wit, May 26th, 1851, after argument and due consideration, it is ordered that the decree and judgment of the said Court of Common Pleas, quashing the said inquisition, so as aforesaid found upon the petition of the said J. H. Mifflin, be reversed
A similar decree is to be entered in the case of Heise v. The Harrisburg, Portsmouth, Mountjoy, and Lancaster Railroad Company.
In the case of Susan Bethel, the opinion and decree were as follow, by
For the reasons just expressed in the cases of Mifflin vs. the above defendant, and Heise vs. the same, we are of opinion the court erred in refusing to entertain the exceptions filed by the complainant, on the ground she is not entitled, at law, to claim the assessment of any damages for consequential injúry done to her estate by making the said branch railroad. But as"we perceive no merit in the said exceptions so filed, we think the court below was right in refusing to set aside the said inquisition.
Wherefore the said decree, confirming the said inquisition, is confirmed May 27, 1851.