Rodgers v. Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway Co.

Citations

• 255 Pa. 462
• 100 A. 271
• 1917 Pa. LEXIS 475

Syllabus

<p>Eminent domain — Eight of way — Brant—Width of right of way —Construction—Intention.</p> <p>1. Where a deed to a railroad company conveys “the full and perfect right of way through and over said lots or lands” for railroad purposes, but does not designate or specify the width of the right of way, the railroad company has the right to appropriate land of £uch width as the board of directors in the exercise of their honest judgment deem necessary for the future as well as for then existing railroad purposes.</p> <p>2. Where in such case a few days after the conveyance the railroad company in eminent domain proceedings condemned a right of way on either side of said grant eighty feet in width and connecting with the grant, and filed a description of the lands taken by it in the condemnation proceedings with the clerk of the Common Pleas Court as required by its charter, it thus indicated to the grantor in such deed just what the width of the right of way through his intervening property would be and thereby became entitled to a right of way eighty feet in width under such deed.</p> <p>3. In an action of ejectment brought by the record owner of the land through which the right of way was granted for a part of the land in the possession of the railroad company and included within the eighty-foot right of way, where it appeared that the full width of eighty feet was unused from the time of the conveyance in 1850 until 1883, and that thereafter the railroad company occupied the full width of eighty feet until the action was brought in 1911, that no claim in opposition to the right of way had theretofore been presented, and that the possession of the railroad company was manifest to plaintiffs at the time when they acquired title, defendants were not estopped to claim title to a right of way eighty feet in width under its grant and the court properly directed a verdict for defendants.</p> <p>4. In such ease where it appeared that the railroad was built upon an embankment