Penn. Schuyl. V. R. v. Ziemer
Penn. Schuyl. V. R. v. Ziemer
Opinion of the Court
Opinion,
This was an action brought in the court below against the railroad company by the widow and heirs of Samuel Ziemer, to recover damages for what are known as consequential injuries, resulting from the construction of defendant’s road.
The plaintiffs are the owners of a property situate on the corner of Canal and Bingaman streets, in the city of Reading. The road of the defendant company has been constructed at grade over the said Canal street, in front of plaintiffs’ property. The road takes a part of the pavement, and the track is within about twenty feet of one of the buildings, and it was alleged interferes seriously with the drainage, besides rendering access to a portion of the property dangerous. The title of the plaintiffs below was acquired on June 11, 1884, by descent from Samuel Ziemer, who was the husband of Margaret Ziemer, and the father of jfche other plaintiffs. '
Upon the trial below the defendant offered to prove that the route for the construction of the said road was duly located and marked with construction stakes, prior to the time of the decease of the said Samuel Ziemer, and that, therefore, the action should have been brought by his personal representatives, and not by his widow and heirs. The court rejected this offer. See first assignment. We think the evidence was properly rejected. The action was for consequential injuries. There was no taking of any portion of the plaintiffs’ property. The plaintiffs’ ancestor was not injured by the setting of construction stakes in a public highway. They were not set on his property, nor was anything belonging to him taken or injured thereby. In such cases there can be no legal injury for the erection or construction until such erection or construction has commenced.
The second assignment- is without merit. The defendant company offered to prove what they had paid to other property owners along the same street for the privilege of laying their tracks upon it. The damages which the plaintiffs had sustained could not be measured by such a standard as this. What particular owners were willing to accept, or had accepted, from the company by way of settlement or compromise, could not affect the plaintiffs. Aside from this, to render such testimony of any value the conditions must be shown to have been similar. This would involve as many issues before the jury as there were persons who had been settled with.
It is sufficient to say in answer to the fifth assignment that the learned judge below distinctly told the jury that they were not to allow compensation to the plaintiffs for any injury to the interests of tlieir tenants. There was no objection to the evidence offered upon this point, and we must assume the verdict -was only for damages to plaintiffs’ reversionary interest.
The portion of the charge referred to in the seventh assignment is technically inaccurate, although substantially correct. In cases of this kind interest is not allowed as interest, but it is usual to instruct the jury to increase the damages by that amount. In other words, interest is allowed as damages. If it were otherwise a person whose property has been taken, injured, or destroyed would not receive full satisfaction: Old Colony Railroad Co. v. Miller, 125 Mass. 1; Del. etc. R. Co. v. Burson, 61 Pa. 369.
The merits of this ease — that is to say, the right of the plaintiffs to recover for consequential injuries, is ruled by Railroad Company v. Walsh, just decided. It is unnecessary to go over the ground again in this opinion.
Judgment affirmed.
Cf. Lafferty v. Railroad Co., ante, 297.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- PENN. SCHUYL. V. R. Co. v. MARGARET ZIEMER
- Cited By
- 20 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- 1. The right of action against a railroad company for consequential injuries to land from the construction of a railroad, where no part of the land itself is taken, accrues when the railroad is constructed, and not when it is first located and the appropriation made. 2. Where a witness has testified 'for the plaintiff as to the manner in which the construction of a railroad has affected the market value of property injured, it is incompetent to inquire on cross-examination what the company paid in settlement of injuries to other properties near to that of the plaintiff. 3. Upon the amount found by the jury as damages for consequential injuries caused by the construction of a railroad in proximity to the land of the plaintiff, interest may be allowed from the date of the construction, not as interest but as part of the damages. 4. Where a railroad is laid down upon a public street, and, though at grade, is so constructed with reference to the property of an abutting owner, that by its lawful operation the drainage is interfered with and access to the property rendered dangerous, the company is liable for the consequential injuries resulting, under § 8, article XVI. of the constitution. 5. It seems that, in such case, injuries to the business of a store kept by the landowner in a building, which, though upon the property injured does not itself abut upon the street occupied by the railroad company, may be considered as an element of damage, in so far as affecting the value of the property.