Beale v. Patterson
Beale v. Patterson
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
When dividing the couhties of Mifflin and Cumberland, the Legislature must have been under the impression that the Tuscarora was a continued and uninterrupted range of mountains; and for this reason it-was supposed to be a sufficiently certain designation of boundaries to divide them by a line running along the summit of the mountain, from a given point, to the Franklin county line. In this, it seems, they were mistaken; and hence, to ascertain the division, some rule must be adopted; and we think the court has hit upon the true one. When the mountains pass each other, forming-an intervening valley between the two, upon the one side of which the mountain is gradually sinking and terminaing, and on the other the mountain is commencing and rising, a line from one to the other at or about the place where the respective mountains acquire an equal height, is the legal dividing line. As that is the case here, had the line between the counties of Mifflin and Cumberland been actually run, the commissioners would have been bound to conform to that rule; and that must be considered as done which ought to have been done. But as this was omitted, the same uncertainty exists as to the whole line as well as to this part of it, and the summit of the mountain, as this ideal or legal line, is only certain as it may be reduced to a certainty; id est certum quod certum reddi potest. As, then, in some respects, it may be Viewed as indefinite and uncertain, the dividing line may be controlled by common usage, and by the assent of the authorities of the two counties. But this would require clear and explicit proof- of an uninterrupted usage and consent, and can only be justified on the maxim, communis em'or facit jus. But, unhappily for the argument, there is no such evidence. The Act dividing the counties was passed in 1789, and the warrant, which is the foundation of the defendant’s title, was laid, and the survey made, in 1794, and at that time there was no
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.