Oakley v. Luzerne Borough

Citations

• 25 Pa. Super. 425
• 1904 Pa. Super. LEXIS 84

Syllabus

<p>Road law — Dedication of street — Acceptance—Boroughs.</p> <p>The mere dedication of a street to public use by the owner will not make it a public highway unless it is accepted by the public and actually opened upon the ground.</p> <p>A dedicated street becomes a public highway only to the extent to which it is actually opened and used.</p> <p>The Act of May 9,' 1889, P. L. 173, relieves land upon which streets have been laid out by the owner, but not opened or used for twenty-one years, from the servitude imposed. If the municipality proceeds to open the street after that time, the owner is entitled to damages.</p> <p>The finding by a referee that a street had not been opened until more than twenty-one years after it had been laid out, has all the force of a verdict of a jury, and will not be set aside except for clear error.</p> <p>In a proceeding by a landowner against a borough to recover damages for the opening of a street which had been laid out more than twenty-one years before it was opened, it is not necessary for the landowner to produce in evidence an ordinance of the borough widening the street and changing the grade, inasmuch as the work may have been the unauthorized act of the officers of the borough subsequently ratified by the borough.</p> <p>The acts of the borough may be proved otherwise than by its records or other written documents.</p>