Burns v. Reynoldsville Borough

Citations

• 48 Pa. Super. 122
• 1911 Pa. Super. LEXIS 348

Syllabus

<p>Road law — Change of grade — Damages—Act of May 1878, P. L. m.</p> <p>1. Where a borough has graded and paved and curbed the cartway of a street, leaving the sidewalk unchanged, and a property owner has instituted proceedings under the act of May 24, 1878, to assess damages to his property, resulting from the change of grade, the amount of the recovery is to be determined by the depreciation, resulting from the grading, in the market value of the owner's entire property considered as a whole, and not by the effect upon a mere fraction of the lot, such for instance, as the reduction of the grade of the cartway immediately in front of the entrance to a livery stable on the lot.</p> <p>2. When a lot is situated above or below the grade of an adjoining street and the municipality lowers or raises the grade of such street, leaving the lot above or below the new grade as it was with regard to the old, and merely adding to the previously existing elevation or depression of the lot, the fact of such additional elevation or depression, as affecting the value of the property after the change, may be shown, but not the specific cost of changing the whole surface of the property by cutting it down or.lifting it up to the new grade.</p> <p>3. In a proceeding by a property owner under the Act of May 24, 1878, P. L. 129, to secure damages for injuries resulting to his property from the change of grade of a cartway of a street abutting on his land, the jury must take into consideration the advantages accruing to the property by reason of the fact that it directly abutted upon the improvement.</p> <p>4. Whether a property owner may be entitled to compensation for the detention of payment of any damages to which he may be entitled in a road proceeding, depends upon whether such detention has been caused by his grossly excessive and unreasonable demands, which it was the duty of the officers of the municipality to resist, or was the result of the improper action of the municipality