Welliver v. Irondale Electric Light, Heat & Power Co.

Citations

• 38 Pa. Super. 26
• 1909 Pa. Super. LEXIS 87

Syllabus

<p>Corporations — Light, heat and power company — Manufacture of electricity — Waters—Seepage—Eminent domain.</p> <p>1. A company organized for the purpose of supplying power for the manufacture of electricity to be used for public and private lighting, but without the power of eminent domain, must so conduct its business that a private nuisance shall not be created by percolation of water brought by an artificial water course upon its premises. Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Sanderson, 113 Pa. 126, distinguished.</p> <p>Deed — Reservation—Seepage—Release.</p> <p>2. Where a grantor reserves to himself the right of maintaining a dam, and the right of carrying water in a race course “as at present enjoyed,” free and clear from all liability to the grantee for loss by reason of the breaking away or overflowing of the race and dam, and subsequently executes a release to the grantee’s successor in title of all claims or demands to any estate, right, title or interest in the land, the land so released is thereafter no longer subject to a seepage servitude.</p> <p>Negligence — Proximate and remote cause — Waters—Seepage.</p> <p>3. On an issue to determine damages to plaintiff's land by seepage and percolation, the case is for the jury where the evidence is conflicting as to whether the flow of water came by the natural level of the land from defendant’s race course on to the plaintiff's land, or whether the injury was caused by the independent intervening agency of water flowing through drains constructed by a railroad company.</p> <p>Waiers — Damage to land — Landlord and tenant — Injury to the reversion.</p> <p>4. A landlord may maintain an action for an injury to land notwithstanding the occupancy of the tenant, where he shows that he is in fact the owner of the land, and that in consequence of the acts and omissions of the defendant, a stated number of the acres of the land were greatly injured and damaged, that his system of underdrains was flooded, and the land rendered un