Weigold v. Pittsburg, Carnegie & Western Railroad

Citations

• 208 Pa. 81
• 57 A. 188
• 1904 Pa. LEXIS 703

Syllabus

<p>Railroads — Agreement with landowner — Homestead—Statute of frauds —Oral contract — Estoppel.</p> <p>Where the agent of a railroad company without disclosing his principal agrees orally with an owner of a homestead to purchase the property at a price named, but without any time fixed for the completion of the purchase, the railroad company cannot after the expiration of twenty months demand a conveyance; and this is so, although the price named in the oral agreement was a reasonable one, and the one subsequently demanded by the owner was unreasonable and exorbitant. In such a case there is no element of estoppel.</p> <p>Railroads — Eminent domain — Exemption of dwelling house — Constitutional law.</p> <p>The exemption of dwelling houses from condemnation by railroad companies contained in section 10 of the act of February 19, 1849, is not repealed by implication by section 1 of article 17 of the constitution of 1874.</p> <p>Constitutional law — Construction—Rebates of the convention.</p> <p>The speeches of the members of the constitutional convention while sometimes throwing light on obscurity, cannot be used to distort the obvious meaning of the language adopted by the convention in the instrument framed by it.</p>