Bell Telephone Co. v. North

24 Pa. D. & C.2d 1, 1960 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 47
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Warren County
DecidedJuly 6, 1960
Docketno. 31
StatusPublished

This text of 24 Pa. D. & C.2d 1 (Bell Telephone Co. v. North) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Warren County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bell Telephone Co. v. North, 24 Pa. D. & C.2d 1, 1960 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 47 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1960).

Opinion

Flick, P. J.,

The stipulated facts of this case are as follows:

Plaintiff is a Pennsylvania corporation organized under the Act of April 29, 1874, P. L. 73, with its principal office in Philadelphia.

Defendants reside in Pine Grove Township, Warren County, and are the owners of land in said township more fully described in a deed to them dated March 25, 1950, and recorded in the Recorder’s Office of Warren County in deed book 244 at page 186, which land is traversed by the Pennsylvania State Highway Route 61029, running in a northerly and southerly direction.

Prior to June 9, 1959, the right of way of said highway crossing defendants’ land was 33 feet wide. Within this right of way and along the westerly side thereof plaintiff has owned and maintained a telephone pole line since May 22,1926, when it acquired said line from Meadville Telephone Company, a Pennsylvania corporation.

Circumstances surrounding the original construction of this pole line and acquisition of the right of way therefor are not now known, but plaintiff acquired all [3]*3rights therein and thereto which were owned by Mead-ville Telephone Company and since May 22, 1926, has maintained, repaired and replaced said pole line.

Two bare copper wires for local service are carried by the pole line and also a lead covered interstate cable containing the following: Two government circuits between Cleveland and Warren; three Dunkirk to Kane circuits; one program transmission between Jamestown and Warren, 6 Buffalo to Kane circuits, 8 Jamestown to Kane circuits, 9 Jamestown to Pittsburgh circuits, 9 Jamestown to Warren carrier service circuits, 10 Buffalo to Warren circuits, 10 Jamestown to Warren circuits, 2 Jamestown to Oil City circuits and 1 Jamestown to Erie circuit.

On June 9,1959, the Governor of the Commonwealth approved a plan for widening and improving said highway, a copy of the plans being recorded July 14, 1959, in Warren County Highway Plan, volume 3 at page 1, et seq., as a result of which the width of the right of way crossing defendants’ land was expanded from 33 feet to 100 feet, and plaintiff was notified by the Pennsylvania Department of Highways to move its pole line to a new location, inside and along the westerly line of the expanded, 100-foot right of way. The new location is, of course, outside the 33-foot right of way as the same existed prior to June 9, 1959.

Plaintiff’s employe in charge of staking out locations for poles where plaintiff proposed to relocate the pole line, talked to defendant, Paul E. North, several times in regard to pole locations, and at his request changed proposed locations for some poles near defendants’ south line where his house is located, offered defendants $50 but said he was not authorized to settle for damages, and staked location for the 12 poles which would comprise the pole line as relocated. On August 20, 1959, plaintiff’s employes started moving the pole line to the new location as staked out. Four holes were [4]*4dug and two poles were relocated. The next day defendant, Paul E. North, using his tractor, effectively stopped plaintiff’s employes from continuing with the location of the pole line. So stopped, plaintiff brought this equity action to enjoin defendants from interfering with moving its pole line.

The respective claims of the parties are stated in plaintiff’s brief as follows:

“The Plaintiff takes the position that they have a present and existing right to remove the old pole line and install a new pole line along the edge of a widened right of way, however, in the right of way. The Defendants take the position that while Plaintiff has the right to maintain the pole line in the old right of way, they presently have no right to install a pole line in the recently acquired part of the right of way.”

Plaintiff asks the court to enjoin the defendants from interfering with the exercise of this “present and existing right,” and defendants, denying the existence of such right, claim that plaintiff’s efforts to relocate the pole line amount to a trespass and they ask the court to enjoin plaintiff from relocating the line.

Fundamental for a decision of this case is the determination of the respective rights of the parties. Plaintiff’s rights in connection with the pole line inside the right of way of highway 61029, which it acquired in 1926 and has maintained since that time, are created by the General Corporation Act of April 29, 1874, P. L. 73. This act authorizes the incorporation of telegraph companies, gives them the right to construct their line along and upon public roads and highways and sets up the method of compensating the owners of property abutting on the road or the highway when damages cannot be agreed upon. This act applies to telephone companies as well as telegraph companies: People’s Telephone and Telegraph Co. v. Berks and Dauphin Turnpike Road, 199 Pa. 411, 414. Referring [5]*5to the rights given by the Act of 1874,. the court said, in Achenbach v. Slate Belt Telegraph and Telephone Co., 73 Pa. Superior Ct. 568, at page 571: “It is well here to remember that telegraph and telephone companies do not have the unlimited right of eminent domain. Their right, in that regard, is limited to the public highway.”

Clause 1 of section 33 of the Act of 1874, amended by the Act of April 22,1905, P. L. 294, to include telephone as well as telegraph companies, provides that the line authorized to be constructed “along, under and upon any of the public roads, streets, lanes or highways, . . . shall not be so constructed as to incommode the public use of said roads, streets, lanes or highways.” The franchise granted by the act must “be exercised in subordination to the rights of the public on the roads of the State”: Little v. Telegraph Co., 213 Pa. 229, 236.

This accounts for the fact that plaintiff’s pole line in this case, as are such lines generally, was constructed within the 33-foot highway right of way and along the westerly side thereof. The basic rights of the Commonwealth, the traveling public, the owners of property abutting on a highway and a telephone company desiring to construct a line along and upon the highway, are clearly distinguished in the case of Hindin v. Samuel, Mayor, 158 Pa. Superior Ct. 539, at page 542, as follows:

“In Pennsylvania it is well established that the title to property abutting on a public street extends to the center of that street. Scranton v. Peoples Coal Co., 256 Pa. 332, 100 A. 818. The public acquires an easement in the highway; the fee of the land remaining in the owner subject to the easement and the land may be used by the owner for any purpose not inconsistent with the easement acquired by the public. Duquesne [6]*6Light Co. v. Duff, 251 Pa. 607, 97 A. 82. No person, corporation or individual has the right to make á special or exceptional use of the public highway not common to all citizens except by grant from the sovereign power. Owl Protective Co. v. Public Service Commission, 123 Pa. Superior Ct. 382, 187 A. 229; Philadelphia Co. v. Freeport Borough, 167 Pa. 279, 31 A. 571. As this Court stated in Philadelphia v. Teller, 50 Pa. Superior Ct. 260, at page 265: ‘The highways belong to the commonwealth in trust for the great body of the people, and he who claims a peculiar privilege to invade them must establish his right under some statute, or valid municipal regulation, ordained in pursuance of statutory authority. Livingston v. Wolf, 136 Pa. 519; Commonwealth v. Harris, 15 Phila. 10; Kopf v. Utter, 101 Pa.

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Bluebook (online)
24 Pa. D. & C.2d 1, 1960 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 47, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bell-telephone-co-v-north-pactcomplwarren-1960.