Dorrance v. Bristol Borough

Citations

• 224 Pa. 464
• 73 A. 1015
• 1909 Pa. LEXIS 826

Syllabus

<p>Water companies — Exclusive privilege — Boroughs—Contract.</p> <p>1. Where a water company lays its pipes in the streets of a borough without the permission of the borough, and without any contract with the borough at the time, and several years thereafter agrees to furnish water for fire purposes alone, but without new construction for merely a fixed period, and without any liability for failure or neglect to provide the supply, and thereafter the borough by a change of its charter acquires the right which it had not theretofore, to construct water works of its own, the borough cannot by injunction be restrained from the construction of such works.</p> <p>2. In such a case an ordinance passed prior to the contract, and providing that persons, firms or corporations making excavations in the streets “for the purpose of laying water, gas or other pipes shall puddle the dirt in refilling said excavations,” is immaterial on the question as to whether a borough has adopted a method of supplying itself with water.</p> <p>3. A water company which has paid dividends at the rate of ten per cent per annum for twenty years has no exclusive privileges to supply water in a borough.</p> <p>4. Gas and water companies are not required to obtain permission of a borough to lay pipes in the streets, for the manifest reason that their charter gives them the right to enter upon the streets and lay their mains without such permission. The only authority of a borough over such companies is the right to subject them to police regulation in regard to the streets so as to prevent their impairment for public travel. The borough cannot annul the charter of a gas or water company by prohibiting the company from entering upon and laying its pipes in the streets.</p> <p>5. A municipality may adopt one of two methods to supply itself with water. It may construct and operate its own works by municipal taxation, or it may contract with a private corporation to construct works and supply the munic