In re Melon Street

Citations

• 182 Pa. 397
• 38 A. 482
• 1897 Pa. LEXIS 824

Syllabus

<p>Appeals — Special allowance — Constitutional questions^-Practice, Supreme Court — Practice, Superior Court.</p> <p>An appellant from the Superior Court to the Supreme Court cannot be permitted to decide for himself whether he is entitled to an appeal with-</p> <p>out allowance. Unless it clearly appears from the record that the case comes within one of the exceptions named in the seventh section of the act creating the Superior Court, there must be an allowance of the appeal, and the petition therefor should set forth clearly and specifically what constitutional question is involved, and in what manner it is raised.</p> <p>Appeals were taken in a road case from judgments of the Superior Court without special allowance, on the filing of an affidavit that the cases involved the construction or application of the constitution of the state. It did not appear from the record that any constitutional question was raised.</p> <p>Held, that, though irregular, yet, as the question of practice when the appeals were taken was new, and had not been provided for by rule, and; as the cases were of public importance, and the judgments were rendered by a divided court, a motion to quash will be overruled and the appeals considered as if they had been duly allowed.</p> <p>Road law — Vacation of street — Damages—Act of April 21, 1858.</p> <p>Where part of a street has been vacated under the special Act of April 21, 1858, P. L. 886, relating to the vacation of streets in Philadelphia, owners of properties which abut upon the street, but not upon the part vacated, are entitled to recover damages if their properties are depreciated in value by reason of their being left in a cul de sac, and cut off from direct access to the system of streets in the direction of the vacated part of the street upon which their properties abut; and difficulties in defining the limits where the right to compensation shall end are not a valid objection to the claims of such property owners. Their injury is