Brown & Hamilton Co. v. Johnson

Citations

• 251 Pa. 378
• 96 A. 823
• 1916 Pa. LEXIS 474

Syllabus

<p>Beal property — Adjoining properties — Wall—Party wall — Joint use — Presumption—Unauthorized use — Equity—Injunction.</p> <p>1. Where two adjoining owners have made common use of a wall upon the land of one of them for more than twenty-one years, there is no presumption that such wall is a party wall, in the absence of record, or other evidence of the rights, under which the party not owning the wall, or his predecessor in title, made use thereof; the presumption is that it was by oral permission, a mere license, and that by continued use the license was ripened into an easement by prescription which must be restricted to the buildings existing at the time the easement was created.</p> <p>2. Where adjoining lot owners made common use for more than twenty-one years of á wall built entirely on the land of one of them, and subsequently the party on whose property the wall was built extended the wall and added to its height, the other party was thereafter properly restrained from using such extended wall for the support of joists and for other purposes in the course of the erection of an addition to her building.</p>