McKim v. Philadelphia

Citations

• 217 Pa. 243
• 66 A. 340
• 1907 Pa. LEXIS 691

Syllabus

<p>Municipalities — Streets—Electric railway company- — Negligence.</p> <p>The legislature has authority to authorize an electric railway company to lay its tracks and operate its lines on the street of a municipality; and it may do so directly or by authorizing its agent, the municipality, to grant the authority, and it may empower the municipality to accompany the grant with such restrictions and limitations as may seem proper to protect the public in the use of the highways of the city. There is a duty, however, imposed upon the company, to exercise the power conferred by the municipality in such manner and way as not unnecessarily to obstruct the highway or interfere with the purpose for which it was primarily constructed.</p> <p>Legislative authority which will shelter an actual nuisance in a street must be express, or a clear and unquestionable implication from powers conferred, certain and unambiguous, and such as to show that the legislature must have Intended and contemplated the doing of the very act in question.</p> <p>If a city permits a street railway company to construct its railway on the streets of a city in such a way as to render the use of the streets by the public unsafe and dangerous, the city will be responsible for injuries resulting therefrom.</p> <p>Where a street railway company having authority from a city to use a street, plants a trolley pole in the middle of the street, and the conical base of the pole is about two and one-half feet in diameter at the street level, and about fifteen or eighteen inches in height and there is no artificial light on the pole nor in its vicinity, the city is responsible for the death of a man caused by the upsetting of a wagon on a dark night by the base of the pole. In such a case the fact that there was ample space between the curb and pole for teams to pass and repass, does not alter the case.</p> <p>Evidence — Opinion of witnesses.</p> <p>Where mere descriptive language is inadequate to convey to the ju