South Western State Normal School

Citations

• 26 Pa. Super. 99
• 1904 Pa. Super. LEXIS 271

Syllabus

<p>Corporations — •Extension of corporate privileges — Strict construction.</p> <p>Acts extending corporate privileges are to be construed most strongly against the company setting them up, and whatever is not unequivocally granted must be taken to be withheld. The power must be given in plain words, or by necessary implication. All powers not given in this direct and unmistakable manner are withheld.</p> <p>Eminent domain — Corporations—State Normal School — School law.</p> <p>The Act of July 10, 1901, P. L. 632, gives no authority to a state normal school to condemn a public street opened on its own land, and over which the public have had passage for over twenty-one years.</p> <p>A public street is a public franchise, and is not such property as a corporation may take for its own use under the general power of eminent domain. It is a franchise which cannot be violated, except by express legislative authority.</p>