Hogan v. Burneson

Citations

• 44 Pa. Super. 409
• 1910 Pa. Super. LEXIS 187

Syllabus

<p>Deeds — Street—Dedication—Call for boundary.</p> <p>1. A call in a deed for a street as one of the boundaries of the land conveyed, is not sufficient to establish a dedication of the street to public use, where at the date of the deed no street in point of fact existed either by marks on the ground, or upon any paper, plot or plan or other deed made by the grantors, or for which they were responsible, and where there is no evidence that any such street had ever been used by the public, or accepted as a street by the public authorities.</p> <p>2. The grantors in a deed may covenant that a forty-foot strip of land contiguous to the land conveyed shall remain open for the benefit of the grantee, although such covenant does not amount to a dedication of the strip as a street for public use,</p> <p>3. Where, in such a case, a subsequent grantee of the contiguous land fences in a portion of the forty-foot strip and holds it adversely for more-than forty years, a successor in title to the grantee of the other land who takes his title after the expiration of the forty years and with full knowledge of the improvements and fences on the strip, has no standing to claim any rights in the strip either as a street or otherwise.</p> <p>4. Where a grantor in a deed refers to a forty-foot street as a boundary, but no street exists at the time either by dedication or by plan of lots, or otherwise, and long afterwards in an action of trespass the question arises as to whether such a street in fact existed, it is reversible error to introduce in evidence a plan of lots, showing such a street, where it appears that the plan was not made until years after the deed, and that the grantors in the deed were in no wise responsible for it, and had never adopted or ratified it.</p>