Mountain Water Co. v. Emaus Borough

Citations

• 43 Pa. Super. 179
• 1910 Pa. Super. LEXIS 29

Syllabus

<p>Corporations — Water companies — Boroughs—Municipal consent to use of streets — Equity—Jurisdiction.</p> <p>1. The right of a private corporation to break up the public highways of a municipality in the exercise of a franchise conferred upon them by an act of assembly is necessarily subject to the reasonable municipal regulations of the district, enacted for the common good of all its inhabitants, unless specially excluded by the act conferring the right. Such a right is not limited to the control of the mere surface; it extends to the soil beneath to whatever extent it may be required in aid of such purposes as fall within the municipal function in connection with the health and safety of the public.</p> <p>2. Where a water company is incorporated to supply water to a township, and thereafter a portion of the township is annexed to a borough, a borough ordinance relating to the extension of the works of the water company is unreasonable and void which provides “that no rights and privileges be granted to said water company to lay pipes and fixtures on any streets, lanes, or alleys in said territory until the same are regularly adopted, located and opened by ordinances and graded to the required grade under.the rules and regulations of the borough.”</p> <p>3. Such, an ordinance would be not a regulation, but a prohibition for an indefinite period, in the case of a township road within the territory which became a borough street when the territory was annexed, and also in case of streets laid out by ordinance, but not opened.</p> <p>4. Equity has jurisdiction to restrain a borough from enforcing an unreasonable and prohibitory ordinance relating to the use of its streets by a water company.</p> <p>5. Where a bill in equity has been filed against a borough by a water company to restrain the enforcement of an alleged illegal ordinance, and the borough has made no objection to the jurisdiction in the court below, it can make no such objection on appeal.-</p>