Allen v. Scheib

Citations

• 257 Pa. 6
• 101 A. 102
• 1917 Pa. LEXIS 674

Syllabus

<p>Real property — Easements—Ways—Equity—Injunction.</p> <p>1. An easement cannot lawfully be used for a purpose different from that for which it was dedicated.</p> <p>2. In a suit in equity brought by the owner of a farm to enjoin defendants from obstructing a private way by which plaintiff had access to a public road, and to restrain them from interfering with the construction of a line of gas pipe upon such property, it appeared ■ that defendants owned neighboring property abutting on the private way; that plaintiff’s right to the use of the way as a means of access to her farm had been recognized for more than twenty years; that plaintiff’s predecessors in title had’ acquired their premises under a parol partition and that the parties interested had agreed that the then owner of plaintiff’s farm should have access to the public road by means of the private way, and that in certain conveyances to defendants’ predecessors the way had been designated as a boundary, but there was nothing to prove that the land covered by the private way had been conveyed to plaintiff or her predecessors in title. The lower court found that plaintiff owned the land covered by the way in fee and awarded the injunction as prayed for. Held, that plaintiff had but an easement of way over the land with which defendants could not interfere, but that she was not entitled to maintain a line of gas pipe thereon as that would be a use not contemplated by the parties at the time when the easement ,was created and the decree was modified by striking from the injunction so much thereof as restrained defendants from interfering with plaintiff’s construction and maintenance of a gas pipe on such private way.</p>