Commonwealth v. Dennison

Citations

• 48 Pa. Super. 293
• 1911 Pa. Super. LEXIS 374

Syllabus

<p>Nuisance — Highways —Traction engine.</p> <p>1. A person may be convicted of maintaining a nuisance, on a highway where it appears that he used on the highway daily for several months a steam traction engine and three trucks attached thereto, constituting a train nearly eighty feet long, that the train was permitted to stand on the highway to the obstruction of travel, and that at times the trucks became detached to the peril of travelers. The Act of June 30, 1885, P. L. 251, regulating the movement of machinery on the public roads does not authorize such a use of the highways; nor can such a use be justified as customary and usual where there is no evidence to show that a train of the kind in question had been moved in the township in which the road was situated, for any long period of time.</p> <p>2. In such a case evidence of the defendant’s instructions to his employees in regard to managing the train and his own conduct with reference thereto, are irrelevant.</p> <p>3. An objection that the roads in question were not public highways, eannot be raised for the first time in the appellate court, where it appears that during the whole course of the trial in the court below they were regarded as public roads, and the testimony of several of the witnesses described them as such.</p>