Trexler v. Lutz

• Decision Date: 16 November 1955
• Citation: 180 Pa.Super. 24,118 A.2d 210
• Parties: Clinton M. TREXLER, Administrator of the Estate of Elton J. Trexler, Deceased, and Cloyd B. Trexler, Mary V. Trexler, Clinton M. Trexler and Ada L. Donet, Heirs of Elton J. Trexler, Appellants, v. Clifford G. LUTZ and Evelyn H. Lutz, his wife.
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

118 A.2d 210

180 Pa.Super. 24

Clinton M. TREXLER, Administrator of the Estate of Elton J. Trexler, Deceased, and Cloyd B. Trexler, Mary V. Trexler, Clinton M. Trexler and Ada L. Donet, Heirs of Elton J. Trexler, Appellants, v. Clifford G. LUTZ and Evelyn H. Lutz, his wife.

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

November 16, 1955

Complaint in equity to enjoin defendants from interfering with plaintiff's access to his land, over a road across defendants' land. The Common Pleas Court, Berks County Sitting in Equity, No. 1, February Term, 1955, Forrest R Shanaman, J., dismissed plaintiff's complaint, overruled his exceptions and entered a final decree for defendants. Plaintiff's administrator and heirs appealed. The Superior Court, No. 180, October Term, 1955, Rhodes, P.J held, that where road for which plaintiff sought a right of way passed from public highway over open field of defendants and then through their adjoining woodland, plaintiff was prohibited by statute from acquiring by prescription a right of way through the woodland, and the easement as a whole including right of way across defendants' field was defeated.

Decree affirmed.

Geo. B. Balmer, David H. Roland, Snyder, Balmer & Kershner, Reading, for appellants.

W. F. Steigerwalt, Allentown, Theodore G. Confer, Reading, for appellees.

Before RHODES, P. J., and HIRT, ROSS, WRIGHT, WOODSIDE and ERVIN, JJ.

RHODES, President Judge.

The plaintiff, Elton J. Trexler, filed a complaint in equity to enjoin defendants from interfering with the access by plaintiff to his woodland over a road across defendants' land. An answer by defendants contained new matter, and to this plaintiff replied. After hearing, the chancellor dismissed the complaint. Exceptions were overruled and a final decree entered. This appeal followed.

The road in controversy crosses a farm owned by defendants. It runs north and south; the southern terminus is a public highway. Crossing defendants' fields it extends through a tract of 110 acres of woodland of defendants to contiguous woodland of plaintiff. The length of the road is approximately 2,500 feet. About one-half of the road, being that part crossing the fields adjoining defendants' woodland, was plowed over by defendants, thus making the road through defendants' woodland inaccessible for plaintiff's use. The chancellor found that the road existed for more than twenty-one years, and had been used by plaintiff and his predecessors in title infrequently for the limited purpose of seasonal visits to the woodland of plaintiff.

In dismissing plaintiff's complaint, the chancellor concluded that plaintiff was prohibited by the Act of April 25, 1850, P.L. 569, § 21, 68 P.S. § 411, from acquiring by prescription or user a right to use the road where it passes through the woodland of defendants; and that any right of way through the woodland being defeated by the Act of 1850, the easement as a whole, including the way across, defendants' fields, would fall.

On this appeal, appellants^[1] have presented the question whether the Act of 1850 is applicable to prevent the granting of an injunction against interference with an easement for use of a roadway running partly through open fields and partly through woodland where the interference by defendants occurs in an open field only.

Defendants contend that the application of the Act of 1850 was not erroneous, but that the chancellor erred in finding that even a limited easement might exist if it were not for such act.

The Act of 1850, § 21, 68 P.S. § 411, provides: ‘ No right of way shall be hereafter acquired by user, where such way passes through uninclosed woodland; but on clearing such woodland, the owner or owners thereof shall be at liberty to enclose the same, as if no such way had been used through the same before such clearing or inclosure: * * *.’

The Act of 1850 was enacted to change prospectively the rule of law announced in Worrall v. Rhoads, 2 Whart. 427, and followed in Reimer v. Stuber, 20 Pa. 458.Eble v. Jones, 158 Pa.Super. 270, 272, 44 A.2d 761.

The act was before the Supreme Court in Kurtz v. Hoke, 172 Pa. 165, 33 A. 549. In that case a way was partly through improved land and partly through uninclosed woodland. It was held that, although the right of way ran through improved land, it did not draw with it the right...