Deringer v. Augusta Hotel Co.
Deringer v. Augusta Hotel Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
Martha A. Deringer, appellee, filed a bill to enjoin the Augusta Hotel Company, appellant, from interfering with the party-wall on the line of their adjoining properties, Nos. 1530 and 1532 on Spruce St. in Philadelphia, and from constructing its new building beyond the line oí the other buildings on said street in that vicinity without first giving a bond of indemnity for her protection against the injurious consequences of such interference and construction. The hearing in the court below was on bill, answer and affidavits, and it resulted in a decree “ that a preliminary injunction issue enjoining and restraining defendants from erecting the proposed party-wall between the property of the plaintiff and defendants in such a way as to encroach upon plaintiff’s property a greater distance than said wall now enroaches thereon, viz: four inches from the line dividing said properties. In all other respects the motion for an injunction is refused.” The question raised by this decree and before us on appeal from it is whether the appellant can, in the erection of the party-wall, demanded by the municipal authorities for the support of its proposed building, lawfully occupy six and one half inches of appellees’ lot for that purpose, or is restricted to that portion of the lot which the old party wall enroached upon.
It is manifest that the injunction was granted on the theory that the rights of the owners of the adjoining lots in reference to the party-wall between them were definitely settled by the construction of the wall which is now condemned as insufficient for the appellant’s new building, and as the old wall encroached upon the appellee’s lot but four inches, the appellant is precluded from erecting a new wall which shall occupy^ more than that space upon it. It does not appear on this record at what time or by whom the first wall was built, or that the parties who then owned the lot entered into an agreement on the subject of the party-wall which extinguished or impaired any of their statutory rights in reference to it. In the erection of a party-wall suitable for the buildings it is designed to support,
The order awarding the injunction is reversed and the injunction is dissolved at the cost of the appellee.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.