Pennsylvania Laundry Co. v. Land Title & Trust Co.

Citations

• 74 Pa. Super. 329
• 1920 Pa. Super. LEXIS 150

Syllabus

<p>Title insurance — Terms of policy — Measure of damages.</p> <p>Where a title insurance company covenanted, for a valuable consideration, to indemnify the insured against defects in title or encumbrances 'which might impair its value, the deprivation of the right to use a part of the property for the purpose which the plaintiff contemplated, was a loss for which the plaintiff is entitled to be indemnified.</p> <p>The measure of damages is the loss which the plaintiff sustained by reason of the defect in his title, and this is not only the value of the strip of ground taken, but also additional expenditures rendered necessary by such defect.</p> <p>An insurance company issued a policy which undertook to insure the plaintiff’s title to a certain piece of ground, excepting such defects as “accuracy of description and dimensions and any other objections which an official survey would disclose.” The plaintiff desiring to erect a building upon the property, employed an architect to prepare plans and superintend the erection of the building. Application was made to the surveyor of the proper district of the City of Philadelphia for an official survey of the lot, and a plan of survey was furnished by the district surveyor to the architect. The latter prepared plans for the building, in accordance with the plan of survey furnished by the district surveyor, and the work of excavating for the foundation was being carried on when a bill in equity was filed by the owners of the property adjoining the western line of the lot, averring that they had acquired by adverse user, for a long period of years, the right to use, as an alley or passageway, a strip of ground two feet six inches wide, along the western portion of the property in question. Upon the filing of the bill in equity, the plaintiff company gave notice to the defendant company of the proceeding and requested it to make a defense to the same. The title company declined to assume the burden of defending the ease upon