Rudolph v. Pennsylvania Schuylkill Valley Railroad

40 A. 1083, 186 Pa. 541, 1898 Pa. LEXIS 1040
CourtSupreme Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJuly 21, 1898
DocketAppeal, No. 408
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 40 A. 1083 (Rudolph v. Pennsylvania Schuylkill Valley Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rudolph v. Pennsylvania Schuylkill Valley Railroad, 40 A. 1083, 186 Pa. 541, 1898 Pa. LEXIS 1040 (Pa. 1898).

Opinion

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Dean,

This was a proceeding under the statute by plaintiff for damages, resulting from defendant’s appropriation of his land, and the construction through it of a steam railroad. The plaintiff owned in fee a tract of about six acres in Lower Merion township, Montgomery county. The land had a frontage of 300 feet on the Schuylkill river, and extended back 1,100 feet; through it flowed a stream known as Gully run, alleged by plaintiff to be pure spring water; on this land, at an expense of over #350,000, he had erected a large paper factory known as the Ashland Paper Mills, operated for the manufacturing of book paper. There were also erected on the land a mansion house with stables, tenement houses for workmen, pulp mills and all the accessories for a proper operation of the plant. There was also upon the land a reservoir for retaining pure water, of an area of about three acres, from which the water pipes leading to the factory were fed. Prior to the erection of the paper mill, the Reading Railroad had been located through the land, upon an elevated structure, having a right of way thirty feet wide. In addition to this appropriation, Rudolph, in May, 1868, conveyed to the same railroad company a strip of land 100 feet wide, containing about seven tenths of an acre, adjoining its right of way, for purposes of a coal siding and freight facilities for his mills. [545]*545The company, besides, stipulating that it would at its own proper cost construct sidings and coal bins; further, covenanted that it would in no way obstruct or interfere with the water course upon the property.

In 1890, defendant, desiring to connect its road with the “Pencoyd Iron Works,” under its right of domain, condemned about half an acre of the property at the western end, but this, after some work upon it, by a change of plan, was abandoned ; and then, by condemnation, were taken, a small part of the ground on which the mansion house was located and the laud above the reservoir, including 436 feet of the stream leading to it. This involved to some extent the reconstruction of the bank of the stream to make room for and sustain the railroad bed. The defendant then constructed and commenced operating its railroad. Plaintiff afterwards operated his paper mills, but eventually closed them, in which condition they have remained. Soon after an adverse decision in an equity suit, Rudolph v. Railroad Co., 166 Pa. 430, on March 9, 1895, he commenced this statutory proceeding to have his damages assessed. One petition, that in No. 107, October term, 1890, averred that the railroad company had entered upon and taken about two hundred and twenty-three one thousandths acres of his land west of the Reading railroad, along Gully run, and then down said run and along the Schuylkill river to the Pencoyd Iron Works, that, further, the railroad company, for the purpose of constructing and operating its railroad, had removed the earth and created an artificial embankment for the location of its track, and thereby the stream washed into the earth and carried it into his reservoir or settling pool. And further, by the operation of the road, coal dust, cinders, soot and grease were constantly deposited in the pool, polluting the water and rendering it unfit for manufacturing purposes. Viewers were appointed on this petition who assessed plaintiff’s damages at $67,158. From this award plaintiff appealed. On the same day, plaintiff presented another petition averring that the railroad company had appropriated about one half acre of other land for the purpose of constructing its branch to said Pencoyd Iron Works ; and in the construction of its road, had removed two dwelling houses, filled up the cellars and located trestlework along the stream, thereby greatly depreciating the [546]*546market value of his property; that the water of said stream was polluted by washings of earth occasioned by rain storms; that he had sustained great damage, both direct and consequential; he therefore prayed a view to assess his damages. Viewers were appointed who assessed his damages on this petition at '$2,970.40. Plaintiff appealed from this award also. Both appeals, by agreement, were tried in the court below before one struck jury. In the first issue, a verdict was rendered in favor of plaintiff for $110,000; in the second, for $5,360. After full consideration by the court on motions for new trial, judgments for plaintiff were directed on both verdicts, and we have before us two appeals by defendant. A third appeal was tried before the same jury. It related exclusively to the mansion house property, and no question concerning it is involved in the two appeals before us. A new trial was granted, and it is still pending in the court below.

< Appellant, in No. 107 of the common pleas, and known in the trial in the court below as claim No. 3, formally prefers seventeen assignments of error, and takes up nearly ten pages of a closely printed paper-book in a mere statement of them. We shall endeavor to give their substance in fewer words :

1. Appellant alleges error in the court’s refusal to allow the jury to look at the water in the pool, and then at it after it had passed through filters.

2. Error in refusing to dismiss plaintiff’s petition because of misdescription of the property.

3. Error in not giving sufficient significance in the charge to the testimony of one Shelldrake, who had testified that at a moderate expense the pond could be roofed so as to exclude soot and coal dust.

4. Error in refusing to charge, when requested, that the conveyance of the strip by plaintiff to the Reading Railroad Company, May 18, 1868, was a severance of the tract into two distinct parcels of land, and, therefore, there could be no recovery in this proceeding for damages sustained by pollution of the water, and damage to the mill arising from pollution of the stream on another distinct and separate piece of land.

5. This is a substantial repetition of the fourth,' with the addition that error is alleged because the court, for the same reason, did not instruct the jury that the sole measure of dam[547]*547ages for their consideration was the difference between the market value of the one piece of land before and immediately after the taking.

6. That, as the Reading Railroad Company had for more than twenty years before the construction of defendant’s road been operating its road through said land by steam locomotives which might he fired with bituminous coal, creating soot and dust, it must be assumed as matter of law that plaintiff or his predecessors had been compensated for damage sustained thereby, and the court erred in not so charging the jury when requested by defendant.

7. Error in not charging, when so requested, that it must be presumed tbat the conveyance by plaintiff to tbe Reading Company of tbe strip of land resulted to liim in full compensation for any injury to him by reason of tbe pollution of the water from coal dust, soot and cinders.

8. Error in not deciding, as requested, that, as there was a severance of the tract into two separate parcels, and the petition described the tract as an entirety, there could be no recovery, but that plaintiff must commence by new petitions, describing each tract separately.

9 and 10, are repetitions of the same legal conclusions, which defendant asked the court to announce in the eighth.

11.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Pignetti, G & J, h/w, Aplts. v. PennDOT
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 2025
Creasy v. Commonwealth
39 Pa. D. & C.2d 12 (Alleghany County Court of Common Pleas, 1965)
In re the City of New York
13 A.D.2d 668 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1961)
Elgart v. Philadelphia
149 A.2d 641 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1959)
Baker v. Pennsylvania Railroad
84 A. 959 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1912)
Pettit v. Jamestown & Franklin Railroad
71 A. 1048 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1909)
Kossler v. Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Co.
57 A. 66 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1904)
Hunt v. Graham
15 Pa. Super. 42 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1900)
Irving's Executors v. Burgess of Media
10 Pa. Super. 132 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1899)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
40 A. 1083, 186 Pa. 541, 1898 Pa. LEXIS 1040, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rudolph-v-pennsylvania-schuylkill-valley-railroad-pa-1898.