Wadsworth v. Manufacturer's Water Co.

Citations

• 256 Pa. 106
• 100 A. 577
• 1917 Pa. LEXIS 572

Syllabus

<p>'Eminent domain — Water companies — Damages■ — Measure of damages.</p> <p>. 1. When in any instance it becomes necessaiy for a water company to resort to condemnation in order to acquire land for a public improvement, expert witnesses, in estimating the market value of such land, may consider as an element its adaptability for the particular use for which it is being appropriated; but they may not take into account the general rise or fall common to all property in the neighborhood consequent upon and directly due to the coming of the improvement as suggested by the prices which the corporation has been obliged to pay to secure other lands.</p> <p>2. Where all the evidence, including that of defendant’s engineer, showed that the land in controversy was especially adapted. for dam purposes, it was not error to permit the jury to take that fact into consideration in determining the market value of the land previous to the taking.</p> <p>Evidence — Practice, C. P. — Trial—General objection to evidence —Motion to strihe out instruction to disregard testimony.</p> <p>3. In such case, where expert witnesses testified for plaintiff as to the value of the land taken, and defendant’s counsel objected to the witness taking into consideration, in making up his estimate of the value of the plaintiff’s property, “any sales that were made to the defendant company” the objection was properly overruled, where there was no notice or intimation that the sales in question were in fact purchases by the defendant after the location of its reservoir or subsequent to or in the course of actual condemnation proceedings.</p> <p>4. The refusal to strike out testimony upon motion made after a witness has left the stand is not reversible error; in such case the only course open is to ask that the jury be instructed to disregard the objectionable evidence.</p> <p>5. Where in such case it appeared from cross-examination of plaintiff’s witnesses and from defendant’s evidence that certain of th