Edwards v. Pittsburg Junction Railroad

Citations

• 215 Pa. 597
• 64 A. 798
• 1906 Pa. LEXIS 857

Syllabus

<p>Railroads — Tracks on streets — Condition—Breach of condition — Rights of ■private owner — Act of June 19, 1871, P. L. 1360.</p> <p>A railroad company occupying a public street without authority by legislative grant in clear words or by unavoidable implication, constitutes a public nuisance and may be enjoined at the suit of a private citizen specially injured.</p> <p>Municipal consent to the occupation of the streets of a municipality by a railroad company upon condition, and the condition broken, is no consent at all.</p> <p>When a citizen finds his property or his rights in danger of being injured or invaded by the acts of a corporation, the Act of June 19, 1871, P. L. 1360, gives him the right without waiting for the assistance of the commonwealth, to challenge the authority of the corporation to the possession of “the right or franchise to do the act from which such alleged injury to private rights results.” The corporation thus challenged must show its authority, and if such authority fails at any point, the defense fails. The language of the charter is .not the sole test of the validity of the acts complained of.</p> <p>Where a railroad company lays its tracks on streets under an ordinance of the city, which expressly provides that the company shall not use the steam whistle as a signal, and that it shall not use bituminous coal as fuel for its locomotives, and the company violates both conditions of the consent, an owner of adjoining land may under the Act of June 19, 1871, P. L. 1360, maintain a bill in equity to restrain the railroad company from the use of the whistle as a signal, and from the use of bituminous coal as a fuel for its locomotives. In such a case the complainant’s action is not to enforce the ordinance, but to prevent an unlawful course of conduct injurious to the owner’s private property rights.</p>