213 Pa. 244 | Pa. | 1906
Opinion by
The facts in this case appear in the opinion of the Superior Court, 26 Pa. Superior Ct. 99, and need not be repeated here. In its petition to the court below, the South Western State Normal School set forth that a plot of thirty-six lots, known as Morgan’s Addition to California, Pa., and recorded in the office of the recorder of deeds for Washington county, was lately laid out by Lewis W. Morgan, and lots were sold therefrom with reference to certain streets and alleys marked upon the said plan; that it had purchased twelve of these lots for campus purposes ; that through them run Main street, fifty feet wide, and other streets and alleys of different widths, all being on the said plan ; that after it had purchased these lots it proceeded to condemn the streets and alleys running through them and adjoining them on the north and south, and prayed, first, for the approval of its bond to secure to the owners of other lots on the plot having rights of way or easements over the said streets and alleys the damages sustained by its condemnation of them; and, second, that the title to the real estate, which it held within the boundaries described in its petition, be decreed to be free of any easement or right of way on account of the location of the said streets and alleys thereon, subject to the payment of such damages as may be agreed upon or assessed according to law. The petition was filed under the Act of July 10, 1901, P. L. 632, authorizing the condemnation of real estate needed for the use of state normal schools. Whether the act is invalid for the reason that the ground which it authorizes to be so taken is not for a public use, is not the question raised in this proceeding. It is whether the appellant is authorized by the act to do what it has undertaken to do.
For the reason that the appellant has not been authorized to condemn the streets and alleys set forth in its petition, the decree of the Superior Court affirming the decree of the court below is affirmed, with costs to the appellee.