Williamsport v. Lycoming County

Citations

• 34 Pa. Super. 221
• 1907 Pa. Super. LEXIS 112

Syllabus

<p>Bridges — County bridges — Cities—Duty to repair — Toll bridges.</p> <p>Where the duty of maintaining highways is imposed on cities, townships and boroughs, and the duty of maintaining bridges is imposed on the county, the question as to what constitutes an approach to the bridge, in other words, where the duty of the county begins and the duty of the city, borough or township ends, must generally depend for its determination upon the facts of the particular case, and not upon any arbitrary rule relative to the distance from the bridge structure.</p> <p>A company was incorporated under the act of 1874 for the purpose of constructing and maintaining a toll bridge over the west branch of the Susquehanna river from the foot of Maynard street in the city of Williamsport to a point opposite in Armstrong Township; the foot of Maynard street was 1,985 feet distant from the river, and in the following year the company acquired title to a strip of land sixty feet wide extending from that point to the river; in the meantime it constructed a bridge over the river, a bridge over a log basin which lay between the river and the foot of Maynard street, and an artificial roadway about 700 feet long extending from the river bridge to the basin bridge of an average width of thirty feet, and varying in height from three to fifteen feet above the natural level of the land; for twenty-five years this roadway was kept open continuously for public travel, and was used as a public highway by all persons who desired to cross the bridge, as well as by those who desired access to the river and the fields lying on either side of the roadway; in 1891 the county acquired the bridge in proceedings under the act of 1876. Held, in a case stated between the city and the county to determine whether the former or the latter 'was liable for an accident to a pedestrian, that, assuming that the duty of repairing county bridges and their approaches devolved upon the county, it did' not extend to the wh