Carroll v. Asbury

Citations

• 28 Pa. Super. 354
• 1905 Pa. Super. LEXIS 200

Syllabus

<p>Deed — Streets—Highways—Plan of lots — Vacation of street — Road law— Injunction — Equity.</p> <p>When an owner of land subdivides it into lots and lays out streets, alleys or courts for the accommodation of the lots, the purchasers of lots acquire a right of property, appurtenant to the lots, in the use of the streets, alleys or courts, without regard to whether any right is by the plotting and conveyance vested in the public.</p> <p>When a street is located by the municipal authorities over the lands of a private owner, but not opened, and the owner in conveying adjoining property, calls for the street as a boundary, such a call does not operate as a dedication of the street to public use as a highway, but the grantee acquires, as against his grantor and those claiming under him, a right of free passage over the land covered by the location of the street.</p> <p>The right of a grantee, and those who claim under him, to have a street upon which his deed calls for a frontage kept open as a way appurtenant to his land is, as against his grantor, entirely distinct from and independent of the right of citizens generally to use the public highways of a municipality.</p> <p>Where an owner of land lays out lots and streets thereon, and one of the streets is placed on the city plan as a public highway and thereafter the street is vacated by the public authorities, the original owner of the land cannot as against the grantees of his lots or their successors in title, claim absolute ownership in the bed of the street vacated, and exclude the lot owners and others from its use. The right of the lot owners can only be lost by adverse user or by proof of facts which constitute an estoppel. The remedy by injunction is the proper one for the enforcement of their rights.</p>