Fifty-fifth Street

Citations

• 16 Pa. Super. 133
• 1901 Pa. Super. LEXIS 29

Syllabus

<p>Boad law — Practice—Appeals—Evidence—Exceptions—Certiorari.</p> <p>On an appeal from an order confirming a report of a jury of view appointed under the provisions of the Acts of April 21, 1855, P. L. 264, and April 1,1864, P. L. 206, to assess the damages and benefits caused by the opening of a city street, the certiorari does not bring up the evidence submitted to the jury of view or to the court below. If the ordinance opening the street was made part of the petition for the appointment of viewers, the appellate court will assume that it is to be considered.</p> <p>Where exceptions to the report of viewers have been dismissed, the appellate court cannot presume that the facts set forth in the exceptions were established by competent evidence to the satisfaction of the court; nor can it look at the evidence, even though it be printed in the appellant’s paper-book, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the court below ought to have reached a different conclusion.</p> <p>If a party assessed for benefits thinks himself aggrieved by the findings of a jury of view upon questions of fact, he should appeal from the report.</p> <p>Road law — Dedication of land — Benefits.</p> <p>A proviso in an ordinance for the opening of streets that certain land owners shall “ first enter into a satisfactory agreement to dedicate to the city free of cost all land within the bed of said streets which they may own,” imports no agreement upon the part of the city to release such landowners from liability to assessment for benefits.</p> <p>The fact that the owners of land contribute to the making of a particular improvement does not warrant the conclusive presumption that the land given by them was in fact, or was accepted by the city, as the full equivalent of the special and peculiar benefits accruing to their property.</p>