Donohugh v. Lister

Citations

• 205 Pa. 464
• 55 A. 23
• 1903 Pa. LEXIS 595

Syllabus

<p>Ways — Private ways — Street—User.</p> <p>On a bill in equity by a property owner to enjoin the maintenance of gateways from lots into a street, which the plaintiff claimed to be a private way, belonging to himself, the court found that for more than forty years before the filing of the bill the way had been paved and used as a city street by the public, including the defendants, without objection by plaintiff or his predecessors in title; that though no express dedication to public use appeared of record, and the street though plotted on the plan books of the survey department was not on any confirmed plan, yet the city had treated it as a public street, had repaved it and reset the curbs, charging the plaintiffs and defendants respectively as abutting owners for the curbing, that plaintiff had paid for the curbing on his side, but.not that on defendant’s side, nor for paving the cartway, and that the gateways complained of had existed as openings in the rear walls of defendant’s lots for forty years, and had been used from time to time, though for a part of that period not appearing exactly, the openings had been boarded up and disused. Held, that the way was a public street, and that plaintiff’s bill was properly dismissed.</p>