Ayars v. Wyoming Valley Homeopathic Hospital

Citations

• 274 Pa. 309
• 118 A. 426
• 1922 Pa. LEXIS 688

Syllabus

<p>Municipalities — Ordinance—Restriction as to hospital construction near dwelling houses — Amendment of ordinance — -R'quity— Injunction.</p> <p>1. Where a person purchases a dwelling house prior to the passage of a city ordinance prohibiting the erection of a hospital within thirty feet of a dwelling, the fact that such person makes improvements upon her property, does not deprive the municipality of the right to amend the ordinance by changing the distance to twenty feet.</p> <p>2. It seems that the amendment is effective from its own date, rather than from the date of the original ordinance.</p> <p>3. It makes no difference as to which date the amendment became effective, if it appears that the construction of a hospital within thirty feet but more than twenty feet of a dwelling had progressed no further than a slight disturbance of the soil when it was stopped by a preliminary injunction, inasmuch as such injunction must be dissolved, because the renewal of the work would be after the date of the amended ordinance.</p> <p>4. The court will not assume that the hospital will make itself a nuisance sometime in the future, nor will it continue the injunction to meet such a possibility.</p> <p>Municipalities — Ordinance—Presumption as to validity — Evidence.</p> <p>5. Until proof to the contrary is shown a city ordinance will be presumed to have been duly passed, in entire good faith, by the city councils.</p>