Court Opinion

ID: 9713696
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:20:19.341463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:20.008831
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice
(dissenting).
The Court cites the well established rule that injunctive relief against violations of covenants concerning the use of land may not be had “if conditions have so changed since the making of the promise as to make it impossible longer to secure . . . the benefits intended to be secured by the performance of the promise.” Restatement of Property (1944) § 564. Applying that proposition, the Court then states that “the changes in the immediate neighborhood” which have occurred should have been considered by the chancellor in determining the enforceability of the covenant. On this record I must respectfully dissent.
The “changes” which the Court believes should have been considered are the operation of a school bus facility (i. e., the parking and minor maintenance of school bus*398es) on the adjoining land owned by the plaintiff. The chancellor made no findings in this respect. In dismissing the exception to this failure, the court en banc stated, correctly in my view, that such use of the plaintiff’s land was “immaterial to a determination of the rights of the parties primarily because plaintiff’s lot is not within the plan of lots covered by the restriction here in question. There are no like restrictions on the property retained by plaintiff.” (opinion of the court en banc, 65a).
Moreover, there has been no change of conditions which can be said to affect these appellants. The restriction prohibiting business or commercial use of the property dates from 1955. The appellants did not purchase their lot until 1973. The use of a portion of plaintiff’s unrestricted land for school bus parking and maintenance has been carried on first by the plaintiff himself, and more recently by his son, for approximately fifteen years (i. e., since about 1958). The parking lot is some two or three hundred yards away from the appellants’ property.
I believe, accordingly, that the majority’s reliance on Sec. 564 of the Restatement of Property is misplaced. I would affirm the injunctive decree on the basis of the chancellor’s adjudication and the opinion of the court en banc. See also Loeb v. Watkins, 428 Pa. 480, 486, 240 A.2d 513 (1968) (opinion of Mr. Justice Musmanno announcing decision of the Court, and concurring opinion of Mr. Justice O’Brien, speaking for himself and Mr. Justice Roberts); Peters v. Davis, 426 Pa. 231, 238, 231 A.2d 748 (1967).