S. Austin Bicking Paper Manufacturing Co. v. Worrall

Citations

• 69 Pa. Super. 571
• 1918 Pa. Super. LEXIS 138

Syllabus

<p>Easement — Bight to a tailrace — Adverse possession — Deed—Obstruction of easement.</p> <p>Where a deed reserves to the grantor the right to a tailrace from a grist mill, and the grantee in the deed covenants not to obstruct the passage of the water in the race, and the owner of the fee, thereafter, constructs across the mill race a one-story frame building with a trapdoor in the floor, and this structure remains in its original condition for over twenty-one years without the owner of the easement ever having taken up the boards to clean the race, the grantee, will by adverse use of the structure, have extinguished the right of the owner of the easement to interfere with the further use of the building; but if the owner subsequently, but within the prescriptive period adds an additional story to the structure, the owner of the easement is entitled to recover damages from the owner if the remodeled structure causes an additional obstruction to the race. If, however, the remodeled structure causes no more obstruction than the original structure, he is not entitled to recover anything.</p> <p>The reservation in such a deed did not keep for the grantor the mill race and with it the right to the open space up to the sky. The grant of the fee subject to the easement carried with it the right to , the grantee to make any use of the servient soil that did not interfere with the easement.</p>