Shuster v. Central District & Printing Telegraph Co.

Citations

• 34 Pa. Super. 513
• 1907 Pa. Super. LEXIS 172

Syllabus

<p>Telephone companies — Eminent domain — Damages—Evidence.</p> <p>In a proceeding against a telephone company to assess damages for injuries to land resulting from the construction of a telephone line along a public road passing through and over the land, witnesses will not be permitted to testify to diminution in the value of the land caused by increased danger from lightning by reason of the construction of the telephone line, where there is no testimony in the case as to a single fact founded on observation or actual experience that would warrant the conclusion that the construction and operation of the line would naturally and probably result in such increased danger to life or property from lightning as to substantially diminish the value of the land.</p> <p>When the property of an individual has been appropriated for public use, his right to , recover compensation, commonly called damages, therefor, is perfect, and he may proceed to enforce it as soon as the act of appropriation is complete. He is not required to await even the beginning of the actual work of construction on the ground. It is also true that he not only may but must recover in one proceeding, even when thus promptly begun, all of the compensation intended by the law as a satisfaction for the injuries resulting from the construction and use of the prospective improvement, or the subjection of his property to a servitude from which it was formerly free.</p> <p>It would therefore seem to follow that in such cases the injuries for which compensation is to be made are those and only those which can be ascertained and valued as well before they actually occur as after-wards. This is but another way of saying that tribunals awarding such compensation, will confine their attention to injuries which are real and actual, and which although they have not occurred, will so naturally, usually and probably follow the appropriation of the land and its subjection to the new public use, that their happening ca