Tesson v. Porter Co.

Citations

• 238 Pa. 504
• 86 A. 278
• 1913 Pa. LEXIS 999

Syllabus

<p>.Roads and highways — Streets—Dedication—Private plans — Municipal approval — Reference in deed — Vacation.</p> <p>1. When one who is the owner of a tract of land in a municipality cuts it up into lots and sells them as laid out on a plan which he has adopted, showing streets and alleys thereon, there is not only an implied covenant hy him to the owner of each lot that the streets and alleys, as they appear upon his plan, shall be forever opened to the use of the public, but a dedication by him of the Same as highways to the public forever, and the municipality itself cannot extinguish the easement which each lot owner thus acquires by private contract with the owner of the plotted ground; but no-such implication exists where the owner merely lays out his plan to conform to the streets as located and established by the municipality within which they are embraced, and no lot included in the owner’s plan is sold by him until after the location and adoption as a public highway by the municipality of every street and alley appearing on the owner’s plan.</p> <p>2. A plan of the streets and alleys of a ward in a borough was approved by the borough on March 22, 1867, under the provisions of the Act of April 11, 1866, P. L. 592. On March 26, 1867, two deeds dated March 21, 1867, were acknowledged and placed of record by which the vendor as owner conveyed two lots designated by numbers on a private plan of the vendor. The exact date of this private plan was not designated but on April 5, 1871, it was acknowledged and placed upon record by the vendor. The location and width of the streets and alleys designated upon it were identical with those upon the plan of the borough. No other lots on this private plan were conveyed by the vendor by deeds bearing date, prior to the date of approval of the borough plan. On July 1, 1868, the vendor conveyed lot No. 11 on his private plan. In 1910 the City of Pittsburgh, to which the borough had become annexed, vacated two streets shown