Sandy Lake Borough v. Sandy Lake & Stoneboro Gas Co.

Citations

• 16 Pa. Super. 234
• 1901 Pa. Super. LEXIS 51

Syllabus

<p>Courts — Judicial notice — Municipal corporations.</p> <p>It is proper for a court to take judicial notice of the existence of the municipal and quasi-municipal corporations into which the county within its jurisdiction is, for purposes of local government, subdivided.</p> <p>Boroughs — Lighting streets— Conditions.</p> <p>In Pennsylvania a borough has power to lay gas pipes under its streets for the purpose of supplying gas forlighting the streets and for the use of citizens, and it is competent for it to exercise that power in favor of private citizens, by granting a license to do the same thing. If the borough grants such a license and imposes conditions upon the right to exercise the same, an acceptance of the grant by the licensees constitutes a contract that while they operate under the license the conditions will be observed, and the duties performed.</p> <p>Where such licensees enter under the grant and continue to enjoy the fruits thereof, they cannot set up as a defense against the performance of the conditions, that the contract was ultra vires. The law never sustains the defense of ultra vires out of regard for the defendant, but only when an imperative rule of public policy requires it.</p> <p>Boroughs — Granting license to light streets — Conditions—Assignments of license.</p> <p>Those who succeed to the rights of the original grantees of a license from a borough to light streets, and continue to exercise such right, are bound to perform the conditions imposed by the original grant.</p> <p>Where a resolution of a borough granting a right to three individuals to light streets is defective because not signed by the burgess, and the resolution provides that certain lighting shall be done free of cost to the borough, a corporation which has succeeded to the rights of the original licensees, and which has occupied the streets of a borough with its gas pipes, and has for a considerable period furnished gas free to the borough, cannot claim exemption from