Harvey v. Lance
Harvey v. Lance
Opinion of the Court
.The opinion of the Court was filed on April 13, 1863, and was as follows per:
. The bill filed is under oath and this with the additional affidavit of Mr. Alexander, is submitted to us, while the defendant
So far, however, as regards the allegation, of continually putting or discharging upon'plaintiff’-s land quantities of coal, stone, slate, ctdm and dirt, the case is different. It is true that a Court will not act by injunction in a case of a single and ordinary trespass, leaving all such questions to a suit at^law for damages, but when the trespasses are so continuous as alleged here, so as to be ■constant^ putting.upon the plaintiff’s land larger quantities of the refuse referred to, from its very continuance necessarily doing permanent mischief to the land covered up by it, and being in fact a nuisance. Equity will interfere. It will thus interfere where evidently the covering up of a man’s land is scarcely susceptible of adequate compensation by damages and where the •end at .any rate, can only be obtained by oppressive and interminable ’litigation or the multiplicity of suits; see 2 Story Eq., Sect. 925, 926 — Brighly’s Eq., Sect. 291; 3' Daniel’s Chancery, 321-2. I cannot think that w-here a person is turning daily on to a .neighbor’s land carloads of culm, slate,,dirt and other refuse of the coal bed, equity will refuse to grant its 'interference so as to prevent the evident injury, because the party injured has the' right to resort to daily suits and annoying litigation ; it is better .that the party should be restrained at once, as under the allegs= tion that it has become a private nuisance which the Court will .always endeavor to stop.
The Court then directs that upon the plaintiff’s filing a bondi in the penal sum of one thousand dollars, with sufficient sureties
The Court further states that as the present bill involves ques- ' tions dependent upon the effect of the Original railroad located many years since, the defendant upon filing, his answer may enter a notice to dissolve this inj unction returnable before the special Court to be held in June next, to which Court this cause-will be transferred. *
Note. — This-case was subsequently taken to the Supreme Court, and the principle affirmed in Lance’s Appeal, 55 Pa. 16.,
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.