Sipe v. Tarentum Borough

Citations

• 263 Pa. 338
• 106 A. 637
• 1919 Pa. LEXIS 427

Syllabus

<p>Road law — Eminent domain — Borough — Public use — Public highway.</p> <p>1. The taking of land for a public highway is a taking for public use.</p> <p>2. Where the use is a public one the question of the wisdom of the action of a borough in condemning land is for the sovereign power of the State and not for the courts.</p> <p>3. An ordinance providing for the opening of a private roadway as a public highway constitutes a taking for a public rather than a private use, and is based on apparent necessity, where the roadway is intended as a means of reaching a garbage incinerating plant, is intended for the use of the borough and several adjoining municipalities and citizens of municipalities desiring to deliver garbage to the plant for disposal, and it appears that the proposed location of the plant was chosen after due investigation and on advice of the borough engineer, that the site was approved by the court, and that the road has been used by many citizens of the municipality as a means of access to the abutting properties.</p> <p>Equity — Injunction—Restraining passage of borough ordinance —Remedy at law — General Borough Act of May 1J¡., 1915, P. L. 812.</p> <p>4. Equity has no jurisdiction to restrain the passage of a borough ordinance for the opening of a private roadway as a public highway. In such a case there is an adequate remedy at law since the passage of the General Borough Act of May 14, 1915, P. L. 312, which provides that the remedy of “any person aggrieved in consequence of any ordinance, regulation or act done or purporting to be done by virtue of this act” shall be by application to the Court of Quarter Sessions, and which makes the determination and order of the court thereon conclusive.</p>