Kaseman v. Borough of Sunbury

Citations

• 197 Pa. 162
• 46 A. 1032
• 1900 Pa. LEXIS 719

Syllabus

<p>Negligence—Railroads—Embankment in street—Duty of municipality.</p> <p>It will not be presumed that a railroad company intends that a part of its right of way on an embankment in the street of a borough, in actual use in the operation of its road, should be appropriated longitudinally by pedestrians as a public thoroughfare.</p> <p>Where a person walking longitudinally along an embankment erected by a railroad company in a public street for railroad purposes is injured, it matters not whether the injury was received from a passing train or by falling into an opening in the company’s right of way. The railroad company as against the pedestrian had the exclusive use of the embankment and when he entered upon it he became a trespasser. The railroad company owed no duty to the pedestrian to span an alley which passed through the embankment and under its tracks with a foot walk or to guard it by the erection of barriers to prevent him from falling into it.</p> <p>In an action against a municipality for the death of a pedestrian who was killed by falling into an open space in an embankment erected longitudinally in a public street by a railroad company, there can be no recovery either on the ground that in.effect the embankment as constructed was a substituted highway, or that the permissive use of it by all persons passing along the street made the defendant responsible for its proper maintenance.</p>