Pile v. Pedrick
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
31 A. 646 (1895)
This is the companion decision to the court's ruling on Pile's own appeal in the same underlying dispute: Pile (plaintiff) and Pedrick (defendant) owned adjoining land, and a surveying error caused Pedrick's factory foundation wall to encroach slightly beneath the surface of Pile's property, though the visible brick wall sat entirely on Pedrick's land. After Pile rejected Pedrick's offers of a common wall, trespass damages, or eventual free use of the wall, the trial court ordered removal of only the encroaching portion and split court costs between the parties. On Pedrick's separate appeal, he argued the trial court erred both in refusing to let his workers enter Pile's land to perform the removal and in splitting the appeal costs.
Whether a trial court properly ordered removal and reconstruction of an encroaching wall from the encroaching landowner's own property, without allowing that landowner's workers onto the neighboring land, and properly split the costs of the dispute between the parties.