Leisenring v. Pennsylvania Lighting Co.

Citations

• 59 Pa. Super. 202
• 1915 Pa. Super. LEXIS 48

Syllabus

<p>Corporations — Gas companies — Liability of tenant for former tenant’s gas bill.</p> <p>1. A gas company chartered for the purpose of supplying with gas a municipality and such individuals residing therein as might desire gas, and having the right of eminent domain, is bound to supply gas to any resident of the municipality, and it cannot refuse such a supply to an owner because of a refusal of the latter to pay a former tenant’s gas bill, if it appears that the owner before going into possession as vendee had no actual notice that he would be required to pay such bill, and was not affected with constructive notice by any resolution or by-law of the company to that effect.</p> <p>2. Where a vendee retains out of the purchase money a sum to pay certain claims against the vendor including a claim of a lighting company for gas, and the fund is not sufficient to pay all of the claimants, the vendor is not barred from maintaining a bill in equity against the gas company to restrain it from cutting off the gas, because the vendor had refused to pay the gas company more than its pro rata share of the fund.</p> <p>Equity — Jurisdiction—Preliminary injunction — Mandatory order— Restoration of status.</p> <p>3. It seems that on an application for a preliminary injunction, a court of equity may make a mandatory order restoring the status quo; but such jurisdiction is not to be exercised except in the clearest cases, and only so far as is necessary to restore the status quo.</p>