Court Opinion

ID: 9753909
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:34:34.486665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:44.911392
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Justice Bok :
It is good-natured of the Majority to let the gas company undo its mistake, but it is wholly illegal. We have called the power of eminent domain, somewhat sententiously, awesome and arbitrary: Brown & Vaughn Dev. Co. v. Commonwealth, 393 Pa. 589 (1958), 143 A. 2d 815. And we have found this awe to exist on both sides, in the condemnor’s power and in the condemnee’s right to compensation. The power is an inherent right of sovereignty and can be exercised only in the manner provided by the Legislature: Philadelphia Clay Co. v. York Clay Co., 241 Pa. 305 (1913) 88 A. 487.
This manner of exercise is set out in the Act of May 29, 1885, P.L. 29, as amended, 15 PS §2033. In providing for a bond, the Act says: “Upon the approval of the bond and its being filed the right of the corporation to enter upon the enjoyment of its [condemned] easement shall be complete.”
The instant the bond is approved it becomes the equivalent of cash, the owner’s right to compensation becomes vested and absolute according to the bond, and title to the land condemned actually passes to the condemnor: Ralston v. Equitable Gas Co., 70 Pa. Superior Ct. 188 (1918); Wood v. Trustees of State Hospital, 164 Pa. 159 (1894), 30 A. 237; Fischer v. Catawissa R. R. Co., 175 Pa. 554 (1896), 34 A. 860; Dilts *238v. Plumville R. R. Co., 222 Pa. 516 (1909), 71 A. 1072; Ferguson v. P. & S. R. R. Co., 253 Pa. 581 (1916), 98 A. 732; McGunnegle v. Pittsburgh & Lake Erie R. R. Co., 213 Pa. 383 (1906), 62 A. 988; McGunnegle v. Pittsburgh & Lake Erie R. R. Co., 269 Pa. 404 (1921), 112 A. 553; Goodman v. Bethlehem, 323 Pa. 58 (1936), 185 A. 719; Philadelphia Appeal, 364 Pa. 71 (1950), 70 A. 2d 847.
In Dilts we said: “The owner’s right to possession had been divested, and her right to compensation had vested and been secured by the bond. At any time after the acceptance of the bond by the owner, if the appellant’s property and franchise had been mortgaged or sold, the title to the right of way would have passed, unencumbered by the owner’s claim for damages. The purchaser would have taken the title to the part of the right of way proposed to be renounced, and the owner would have been compelled to look to the bond for her damages. . .”
And summed up in this way: “But where a railroad company under the right of eminent domain enters for the purpose of appropriating land for its right of way, fixes the width of its appropriation which is approved and adopted by its board of directors, gives a bond to secure the damages resulting from such appropriation, and actually occupies and constructs its road on the land, the railroad company cannot thereafter refuse to take any part of the right of way so as to defeat the owner’s right to damages for the width originally fixed by the company. . .”
In Ferguson we said: “The learned court, therefore, did not err in refusing to permit the defendant company to amend its petition” after bond, and in McGunnegle, which was a proceeding to correct the description of the land taken, we said: “. . . the defendant moved to amend the description of the property condemned by striking out the words, ‘together *239with all the land lying between the harbor line and the low water line of the Ohio River.’ This was objected to as coming too late; and, further, upon the ground that the railroad company, having filed its bond, could not, without consent, abandon any portion of the land condemned.. The position taken by the plaintiff was sustained, and the amendment was refused. On appeal by the railroad company, this action of the court below was subsequently approved: McGunnegle v. P. & L. E. R. R. Co., 213 Pa. 383.”
The Majority completely misconceives the function of the bond. It not only fixes the rights of the parties as written, but it legally converts the property into cash and works the actual passage of title. It is wholly irrelevant that a mistake was made, for it could have been corrected at any time before the bond was approved: after that point title passed, mistake or no. Nor is it important whether anyone was deceived or harmed.
The Majority says that the gas company “simply wishes to correct a mistake, a correction of which will harm no one. The law is not the harsh, rigid, unrealistic, unreasoning despot it was once assumed to be,” and more to like irrelevant effect. As far back as Wood v. Trustees, supra (164 Pa. 159), we said: “Whenever it clearly appears, as it does in this case, that there has been such an actual taking under the power of eminent domain, as invests the donee of the power with title, and gives to the landowner a vested right to compensation, the former should not be permitted to discontinue without the consent of the latter. Any other rule would he productive of oppression and other mischievous results(Emphasis added.)
Since the approval of the bond is an actual taking, a moment’s thought should suffice to convince anyone that to allow lawsuits because of “mistakes”, actual or contrived, after a clearly defined point, would play *240havoc with public works, the title to property, and the rights of owners.
The gas company began its survey on May 19, 1958, and presented its petition to approve its bond on August 25, 1958. It had ample time to discover its error and to correct it, and it has no one but itself to blame. We are not faced with a liberal concept of amendment but with statutory and decisional pronouncements of when title passes and rights vest. Hence we have no right to be amiable.
Mr. ■ Justice Benjamin R. Jones joins in this dissent.