Equitable Gas Co. v. Limegrover

Citations

• 54 Pa. Super. 250
• 1913 Pa. Super. LEXIS 50

Syllabus

<p>Deed — Construction — Ambiguous language — Surrounding circumstances — Conduct of parties.</p> <p>1. A landowner by deed conveyed to a gas company the right to lay down and maintain a line of pipe with the necessary appurtenances for the same on a line marked on the ground and described in the deed. The right was also given to erect and maintain telegraph or telephone poles which were declared to be a necessary appurtenance. The term stated in the deed was fifteen years. Subsequently the owner sold the land and his grantee was the owner at the expiration of fifteen years period. On the termination of the right the new owner executed a deed by which he continued to the gas company its right to have and maintain its pipe line for the conveyance of gas over his land, defining the line, and stating that it was the same line that was laid down under the right of way given by the previous owner “the said right of way haying expired by limitation of term.” This deed made no allusion to the telegraph or telephone line. The owner, however, knew of the telephone line and made no objections to its continued use for three years after the second deed was executed. Held, (1) that under the express language of the second deed, construed in connection with the first deed, the gas company had the right to continue the use of the telephone line after the execution of the second deed; and (2) that even if the language of the second deed was doubtful, the surrounding circumstances and the conduct of the parties showed that it was the intention of the grantor in the second deed to continue in the grantee the right to maintain the telephone line.</p> <p>2. Where the language of a deed is doubtful, its terms are to be construed in the light thrown on them by the situation of the parties, the circumstances and relation to the property in regard to which they have negotiated, and the necessities for which they would probably provide.</p> <p>3. In construing an ambiguous contract the cond