State Highway Route No. 72

Citations

• 265 Pa. 369
• 108 A. 820
• 1919 Pa. LEXIS 557

Syllabus

<p>Road law — Opening and improvement — Damages — Rights of landowners.</p> <p>1. In the opening and improvement of public highways the landowners are entitled only to such redress as is given by statute, inasmuch as their claim is a matter of grace and not of constitutional right.</p> <p>Road law — Construction—Exercise of sovereign authority — Liability of Commonwealth for damages.</p> <p>2. The Commonwealth exercises its sovereign authority in the construction of public highways, and is not liable for damages occasioned thereby unless made so by express enactment.</p> <p>Road law — State highways — Change of grade — Damages—State Highway Act of May SI, 1911, P. L. Ifi8, Sec. 61.</p> <p>3. The Commonwealth is not liable for damages occasioned to abutting property by the change of grade of a State highway where no change is made in the horizontal lines of the road inasmuch as a change of grade does not constitute “a change of existing lines and location,” within the meaning of Section 16 of the State Highway Act of May 31,1911, P. L. 468, providing for the assessment of damages resulting to abutting property.</p> <p>Statutes — Construction—Title—Title broader than act itself.</p> <p>4. Although the title of a statute may be considered in construing the statute it cannot give vitality to a subject omitted from the body of the statute nor control the plain meaning of the language of the statute.</p> <p>Constitutional law —Talcing private property for public use — Compensation — Change of grade of highway — ■Article I, Section 10 —Road law.</p> <p>5. The change of grade of an existing highway which occasions damage to abutting property is not a taking or application of private property for public use within the inhibition of Section 10 of Article I of the Constitution, which provides “nor shall private property be taken or applied to public use without authority of law and without compensation being first made or secured.”</p> <p>Constitutional law■ — Talcing private