Wheelock v. Fuellhart

Citations

• 158 Pa. 359
• 27 A. 997
• 1893 Pa. LEXIS 1592

Syllabus

<p>Highways — Depositing material upon road — Trespass.</p> <p>No one has the right to deposit and maintain material upon a highway without the consent of the person who owns the fee in the soil of the road.</p> <p>Plaintiff, under an agreement with defendant, the owner of the soil of a highway, deposited lumber and bark upon the road; and when the agreement had expired he refused to remove it. Defendant then transferred the lumber from the road to her own land, but there was no evidence that she claimed or intended to claim it, or prevented plaintiff from moving it. Held, that plaintiff could have removed the lumber from defendant’s land without becoming liable to her as a trespasser, and that he was not entitled to damages for the removal of the lumber from the road.</p> <p>In the above case plaintiff claimed that part of the lumber had been placed upon a portion of the road appropriated by a railroad company. It did not appear that any portion of the land had been condemned by the company, and three witnesses for defendant testified that the platform upon which the lumber was piled was wholly within the public road, while plaintiff himself testified that it was “ almost entirely on the public highway.” Held, that a jury ought not to have been permitted to find on this evidence that plaintiff’s lumber and bark were taken by defendants from the railroad company’s land.</p>