Stephens v. Cambria & Indiana Railroad

Citations

• 242 Pa. 606
• 89 A. 672
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 702

Syllabus

<p>Eminent domain — Railroads — Evidence — 0ondemnation for right of wag — Amount of land taken — Damages—Interest.</p> <p>1. The measure of damages which the owner of. farm land can recover on appeal from the award of a jury of view in proceedings to condemn land for railroad purposes is the difference in the market value of the farm before and after the taking of the strip.</p> <p>2. In such case evidence of the unlawful cutting of timber by the contractor outside the right of way is irrelevant and it is error to charge the jury that the cutting of timber outside the right of way might be considered as affecting the value of the farm, as whatever may have been done outside the right of way either by the company or by its contractor was not done in the exercise of the right of eminent domain; and not being the immediate, necessary or-unavoidable consequence of the exercise of that right could not be the basis of any claim in such proceedings; recovery for such injuries could only be had in an action of trespass against the wrongdoer.</p> <p>3. Where, in such case, it appeared that before the commencement of the proceedings, defendant railroad company in a petition for the approval of its bond to secure the payment of damages had described the land as containing 4% acres, and as being 100 feet in width; that before the approval of the bond it was agreed that a width of 60 feet only should be appropriated by the railroad containing but 2.94 acres, and that the judge certified on the back of the petition the making of such an agreement, the court erred in admitting the petition with the surveyor’s draft which accompanied it, where the offer was not accompanied by the endorsement showing the agreement that the land was to be but 60 instead of 100 feet in width.</p> <p>4. In such a case where the jury, after having been properly instructed that they might add to the amount which the plaintiffs were entitled to receive for the injury done to their land a sum to compensat