Snively v. Washington Township

Citations

• 218 Pa. 249
• 67 A. 465
• 1907 Pa. LEXIS 495

Syllabus

<p>Road law — Eminent domain — Passageway under public road — Adverse possession — Damnum absque injuria.</p> <p>All rights of the individual in property are subordinated to the sovereign power of the state in the exercise of its right of eminent domain to appropriate such property for its public highways.</p> <p>Neither the commonwealth nor a township is liable for damages occasioned by the appropriation of private property for the construction of public highways, nor for injuries resulting therefrom in the absence of legislation providing for compensation.</p> <p>Where a landowner had a passageway for cattle which also answered as a water course, under a private way, and the township appropriated the road as a public road, and maintained a stone culvert of such a size as to answer the purpose not only of a water course, but also as a passageway for cattle, the township had the right fifty years thereafter to close up the culvert and substitute therefor a pipe for the passage of water without any liability to the landowner for the loss of the passageway for cattle.</p> <p>Supervisors have the whole- care and entire supervision of the public highway, and no person, not even an abutting landowner, can make any permanent private use thereof without their consent and approval, and even then subject to the right of the township to discontinue the private use when it is deemed expedient or necessary in order to promote the public use of the highway.</p>