Twelfth-St. Market Co. v. P. & R. Terminal R.

Citations

• 142 Pa. 580
• 21 A. 989
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 780

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>1. The test whether properly of a corporation is held for a public use, so that it cannot be appropriated by another corporation, under the right of eminent domain, without express or necessarily implied legislative authority, is the inquiry whether or not a public trust is imposed upon the property; whether the public has a legal right to the use which cannot be gainsaid or withdrawn at the owner’s pleasure.</p> <p>2. A company incorporated to build and maintain a market-house, on property to be acquired by purchase, and authorized to rent the stalls therein on such terms and to such persons as its managers may determine, with full power to lease or sell the property acquired for that purpose and to quit the business at its own pleasure, is in every legal sense a mere private business corporation.</p> <p>3. The market-house and land of such corporation, so held, is not appropriated to public use in such a sense as that it cannot be taken by a railroad eompany, incorporated under the act of April 4, 1868, P. L. 62, for a railroad station, even though by the statute incorporating such company its purpose was declared to be the maintenance of buildings “ to be appropriated and used as a public market-house.”</p> <p>4. The charter of incorporation of a regularly incorporated company cannot be called in question or assailed in any merely collateral suit affecting the rights oí the corporation, such as a bill for an injunction to restrain the exercise of powers embraced within its charter, filed by a private suitor: such a collateral attack is unauthorized by act of June 19, 1871, P. L. 1361.</p> <p>5. It has been the universal practice, under the act of April 9, 1856, P. L. 288, to designate a fixed sum as a penalty in bonds securing compensation for property taken under the right of eminent domain. From the order of the Court of Common Pleas approving such a bond as adequate in amount and executed by sufficient sureties, there is no appeal t