McKinney v. Pennsylvania Railroad

Citations

• 222 Pa. 48
• 70 A. 946
• 1908 Pa. LEXIS 657

Syllabus

<p>Railroads — Private grade crossing — Public road — Merger of private road in public road — Extinguishment of private road — Estoppel.</p> <p>Where an owner of a private road and grade crossing over a rail- ' road of .five tracks with 300 trains passing daily joins in proceedings to establish and lay out a public road, embracing the private right of way and grade crossing within its limits, and the enjoyment of which public road cannot be separated from the enjoyment of the private right of way and grade crossing, the conduct of such owner may be regarded as having operated to have extinguished his easement altogether; and if the public road is thereafter vacated by an arrangement between the public authorities and the railroad company, and an underground passageway substituted therefor, the owner and those claiming by descent from him have no standing to maintain the- continued existence of, the private road and grade crossing.</p> <p>In such a case, where a son of the owner testifies that his father’s name had- been signed to the petition for the public road by another son, who had done some business for the father, and the record shows that due notice had been given to the landowners, and that the jury of view had tried to settle with them by securing releases, and there is nothing to show that the owner objected to the proceedings or repudiated them, the court is justified in finding that the owner either participated in the proceedings or acquiesced in them, and that he was estopped thereafter from claiming the continued existence of the private right of way over the railroad.</p> <p>Grade crossings are constant perils not only to those using them, but to those upon trains passing over them, liable to be wrecked by collisions. Such crossings whether private or public, ought in all cases to be done away with, and equity will protect a right to use them only when such right is so clear that a chancellor must recognize it. No class of cases calls more strongly f