Pennsylvania Railroad v. Pearsol

Citations

• 173 Pa. 496
• 34 A. 226
• 1896 Pa. LEXIS 734

Syllabus

<p>Deed — Location of land — Parol evidence — Railroad.</p> <p>Where a deed conveying a right of way to a railroad company fails to describe the exact situation of the land, parol evidence is admissible to assist in ascertaining the true location of the land conveyed; and such evidence is not governed by the rule relating to the reformation of written instruments by parol evidence of what occurred at the time of their execution.</p> <p>In 1872 defendants’ testator conveyed to plaintiff, a railroad company, a strip of land of the width of sixty feet. There was nothing in the deed to define the location of the land except that the strip was to run from a point (not designated) in the division line on one side of the land, to a point (not designated) in the division line on the opposite side. In the following year the defendant company laid a single track on defendants’ land. In an action of ejectment the railroad company claimed land of defendants within thirty feet of the center line of the railroad track. The officer of the company who conducted the negotiation with defendants’ ancestor, testified that the right of way was located prior to the signing of the deed, but he did not testify that the location as then made included the land in dispute. He also testified that the location as made interfered with the landowner’s kitchen which stood at the back of the house, and next to the railroad, and that the owner was allowed $100 to move it “ out of the way of the road.” The new kitchen was erected about four feet from the line on which the company subsequently built a wall, and upon the land in dispute. Held, (1) that there was evidence sufficient to overcome the presumption that the center of the track or roadbed was the center of the strip of land conveyed in the deed; (2) that a fair inference from the testimony was that a portion of the kitchen was within the right of way as located by the company, and that the main part of the dwelling house, and a part of the ki