Wayne Sewerage Co. v. Fronefield

Citations

• 76 Pa. Super. 491
• 1921 Pa. Super. LEXIS 174

Syllabus

<p>Easements — Sewers—Bight of access to sewers — Sewerage companies — Bates—Public Service Commission — Power to fix rates— Bight to collect — Affidavit of defense.</p> <p>1. An easement is a privilege without profit which'the owner of one neighboring tenement hath of another, existing in respect to their several tenements by which the servient owner is obliged to suffer or not to do something on his own land for the advantage of the dominant owner.</p> <p>2. A drain pipe laid in a public street, the use of which may be ordered to be discontinued, disused or abandoned by the Commonwealth through its health authorities, under its police power, for the health and well-being of the community, is not such a tenement as is subject to a true easement as above defined.</p> <p>3. In an action of assumpsit to recover charges of a sewerage company, duly filed with and approved by the Public Service Commission, an affidavit of defense is insufficient which sets forth that the defendants are not liable to the plaintiff because they are holders of easements which entitle them to drain sewerage into the sewers of the plaintiff company.</p> <p>4. The fact that the defendants were the possessors of an easement through former conveyances, of the right to drain into a sewer, does not affect the case, where such sewer was declared unsanitary by the state health authorities and the plaintiff was compelled to make large expenditures to provide a sanitary sewerage system. The drainage being through the construction of the plaintiff it was entitled to be paid for its services.</p> <p>5. Such a ruling does not mean the extinguishment of an easement granted under a former conveyance. If the rights possessed by the defendants are real property rights they cannot be disturbed even by the Commonwealth under its police power, or except by proceedings in eminent domain, and the order of the Public Service Commission fixing the rates to be charged by the plaintiff company is without effect to th