Born v. Pittsburgh

Citations

• 266 Pa. 128
• 109 A. 614
• 1920 Pa. LEXIS 519

Syllabus

<p>Road law — Vacation of streets — Ordinance—Repeal—Municipalities — Contract—Binding future council to pass future ordinance.</p> <p>1. When an ordinance has been duly passed vacating a street and has gone into effect, a repeal of it would have no effect to reestablish the street so vacated.</p> <p>2. If an ordinance is passed for the vacation of a street to take effect at a future time, either upon the fulfilling of a condition or the happening of any future event, or the arrival of a fixed time, the repeal of the ordinance before it has gone into effect under its terms, will have no effect upon the status of the street and it will continue thereafter to be a street as before.</p> <p>3. It is not in the power of the city council to pass an ordinance or otherwise make a contract binding itself or a future council to pass a future ordinance.</p> <p>4. Where a vacation ordinance is not to go into effect until a certain other street is paved, and- the ordinance does not provide when or how or by whom the other street is to be paved, and such an ordinance is repealed before the paving is done, the status of the street intended to be vacated is not changed, if the repealing ordinance is otherwise valid.</p> <p>Equity — Jurisdiction—Cloud on ti(le.</p> <p>5. A cloud upon a title which a court of equity has jurisdiction to remove is where there is an apparently good title or claim against that of the plaintiff, which, however, is really defective by reason of something not appearing of record. Where everything appears upon the record, the validity of the plaintiff’s title is a question of law which the plaintiff has no right to call upon a court of equity to determine.</p>