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105 Pa. 604

Transue v. Sell

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided March 11, 1884

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1884-03-11

268. This was an action on the case by William Sell against Reuben Transue to recover nominal damages for the obstruction by the defendant of an alley which the plaintiff claimed was appurtenant to his lots in South Bethlehem. Plea, not guilty.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1884-03-11

How this case has been cited

Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently March 1971

23 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Chief Justice Mercur

¶1delivered the opinion of the court, March 24, 1884.

¶2It is well settled law that on the sale of a lot bounded by a street, the title passes to the centre of the street, if the grantor had title to the land covered thereby, unless he reserved it either expressly or by clear implication. Paul v. Carver, 2 Casey, 223; Cox v. Freedley, 9 Casey, 124; Trutt v. Spotts, 6 Norris, 339; Spackman v. Steidel, 7 Norris, 453.

¶3When one, who is the proprietor of the portion of the town in which the lands lie, sells and conveys the lots according to a plan which shows them to be on a street or alley, it creates an implied covenant of the existence of the street or alley. Trutt v. Spotts, supra.

¶4When Wolle laid out the plan of lots on the alley now in contention, he was the undoubted owner of the land covered thereby. When he sold and conveyed the lots according to the plan and bounded them on the alley, he not only conveyed the xrse of the alley as appurtenant to the lots bounded thereon, but he thereby dedicated it to public use.

¶5In this case the evidence is clear that the grantor made a plan, and by it sold lots. The omission to produce the draft on the trial under the other evidence was not error. ' The *610jury has found the true location of the alley to be as claimed by the defendant in error. It was actually opened and used for several years, as a public, alley. The fact that it was not entered on the books or maps of the borough of South Bethlehem, was unimportant to the rights of the parties in this action.

¶6. The defendant in error showed title derived from Wolle, and was entitled to all the rights, privileges and appurtenances flowing from his deed of conveyance. Thus holding, the defendant in error had a right to the free and uninterrupted use of the alley. The plaintiff in error had acquired no right from any person by grant or conveyance to obstruct the alley, but sought to protect himself from liability by proving diflfer.ent and disconnected acts of trespass extending over parts of several years. All the evidence was clearly insufficient to establish any right to obstruct the alley under the statute of limitations, or to bar the public character which had been stamped thereon by the former owner of the land. The assignments are not sustained.

¶7Judgment affirmed.

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