A sharply divided state Supreme Court has ruled that the taking of private land for a private road leading to a landlocked parcel must be judged under the constitutional standard of whether the public is the primary and paramount beneficiary of the taking.
Justice Thomas G. Saylor, writing for the four-member majority of Justices Debra M. Todd, Seamus P. McCaffery and Joan Orie Melvin, said that “the constitutions of the United States and Pennsylvania mandate that private property can only be taken to serve a public purpose. This court has maintained that, to satisfy this obligation, the public must be the primary and paramount beneficiary of the taking.” The court did not directly rule unconstitutional the Private Road Act, an 1836 law that lets owners of landlocked property ask a common pleas court to appoint a Board of Viewers to place a private road between the owners’ property and a roadway that leads to or is part of the public road system.
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