Pallone v. New York Telephone Company

• Decision Date: 09 June 1972
• Citation: 286 N.E.2d 735,335 N.Y.S.2d 300,30 N.Y.2d 865
• Parties: , 286 N.E.2d 735 Pat PALLONE et al., Appellants, v. NEW YORK TELEPHONE COMPANY, Respondent.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 300

335 N.Y.S.2d 300

30 N.Y.2d 865, 286 N.E.2d 735

Pat PALLONE et al., Appellants, v. NEW YORK TELEPHONE COMPANY, Respondent.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 9, 1972

Appeal from the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department, 34 A.D.2d 1091, 312 N.Y.S.2d 660.

Costello, Cooney & Fearon, Syracuse (Vincent A. O'Neil, Angela S. Cooney, Syracuse, of counsel), for defendant-respondent.

An action was brought by landowner against telephone company for damages for trespass. The Onondaga Trial Term, Carl W. Peterson, J., entered a judgment for the landowners and the telephone company appealed.

The Appellate Division reversed. It held that where the poles were in plain view at the time owners acquired property they took the property with notice of the telephone company's rights. The landlowners appealed.

In the Court of Appeals, the company urged that the agreements executed by former owners created a property right in the telephone company to install and maintain its communications equipment on land which could not be terminated at will or automatically extinguished upon conveyance of land and that the landowners, prior to acquiring their respective interests, had actual or constructive notice of telephone company's occupancy. The telephone company also asserted there was no basis for award of punitive damages and that the recovery of damages accruing more than three years prior to commencement of action of trespass to real property was barred.

Order affirmed, without costs.

All concur.