Court Opinion

ID: 9763976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:05:50.468829+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:51.975411
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Boberts:
I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that the procedure for contesting the validity of this taking is governed by the Eminent Domain Code of 1964. Section 901 of that code declares: “This act shall not . . . repeal, modify or supplant any law insofar as it confers the authority or prescribes the procedure for condemnation of rights-of-way or easements for occupation by water, electric, gas, oil and/or petroleum products, telephone or telegraph lines used directly or indirectly in furnishing service to the public. If the condemnation for occupation by water, electric, gas, oil and/or petroleum products, telephone or telegraph lines consists of the taking of a fee, all the provisions of this act shall be applicable.” Act of June 22, 1964, P. L. 84, §901, 26 P.S. §1-901 (Supp. 1966). (Emphasis supplied.) This section is a clear and unmistakable legislative command that, when certain public utilities condemn less than a fee, the procedure to be followed is not changed by the Eminent Domain Code of 1964, but rather is the same as that which obtained prior to passage of the code. See Snitzer, Pennsylvania Eminent Domain §406-2.3, at 157 (1965). In the instant case appellee natural gas company sought easements and therefore appellant should have proceeded under the Act of May 29, 1885, P. L. 29, §10, as amended, 15 P.S. §2031 et seq., detailing the procedure to be followed in situations where a gas company seeks to condemn an easement.
Neither Valley Forge Golf Club v. Upper Merion Township, 422 Pa. 227, 221 A. 2d 292 (1966) nor Greenwald Appeal, 424 Pa. 318, 227 A. 2d 166 (1967) support the majority’s conclusion that the Eminent *275Domain Code displaces the pre-existing procedure for challenging the propriety of a gas company’s condemnation of an easement. Valley Forge held merely that the Eminent Domain Code rather than equity was the proper route to attack condemnation of a fee by a township, and thus does not control where less than a fee is taken by a gas company. In Qreenwald, a case which did involve condemnation of less than a fee by a gas company, we carefully distinguished between the procedure for condemnation and the procedure for determining damages, holding that only the latter was supplanted by the Eminent Domain Code. I think it clear that the proper route for objection to the validity of the taking should be classified as part of the condemnation procedure not the determination of damages and thus the procedure antedating the code should apply-
I dissent.
Mr. Chief Justice Bell and Mr. Justice Eagen join in this dissenting opinion.