Pettit v. Jamestown & Franklin Railroad

Citations

• 222 Pa. 490
• 71 A. 1048
• 1909 Pa. LEXIS 900

Syllabus

<p>Lateral support — Deed—Grant in fee simple — Railroad—Damages.</p> <p>The right of the owner to lateral support of his land is a natural right. It is not simply an easement, but an incident to the land, a right of property necessarily and naturally attached to and passing with the soil.</p> <p>Where an owner of a tract of land conveys by deed a fee simple title in a strip of land through his tract to an individual described as trustee, and the strip of land is particularly described by reference to the location survey of a railroad, and the deed reserves a railroad crossing over the strip, and the right to lay pipe lines under it, and subsequently the grantee conveys the strip to a railroad company, such company, in the absence of any provision in the deed to the trustee obligating the latter to build a railroad, and in the absence of any release of damages, owes to the land on each side of the strip the duty of lateral support; and if the company in constructing its railroad causes such land to fall, it will be liable in damages to the owner.</p>