Bryant v. Gustafson
| Decision Date | 06 January 1950 |
| Docket Number | No. 34775,34775 |
| Citation | 230 Minn. 1,40 N.W.2d 427 |
| Parties | BRYANT et al. v. GUSTAFSON et al. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. In construing a plat, the same legal principles apply whether the dedication of a road thereunder is to the use of the public or to the use of a more restricted group of beneficiaries.
2. In construing a plat to determine the intent of the dedicator, the plat as a whole, inclusive of all lines and language found thereon, must be considered, and no part thereof is to be ignored as superfluous or meaningless.
3. All ambiguities in a plat are to be resolved against the dedicator and to the reasonable advantage of the grantees of the dedicated use.
4. He who purchases a lot with reference to a plat is deemed to have thereby purchased, as appurtenant to the lot, all the advantages, privileges, rights, and easements which the plat represents as belonging to the lot and as belonging to the owner thereof as a resident of the platted area, and this principle is applicable not merely to the roads and streets upon which the purchased lot abuts, but to all roads and streets of advantage or utility to the platted area as a whole.
5. Where a passageway is dedicated by a plat to a use authorized by statute and such passageway leads to a navigable water, such dedication, whether it be to a quasi-public or a private use, is to be construed--absent an indication of a contrary intent--as intended to enable the beneficiaries of the use to get to such water for the more convenient enjoyment of recreation and navigation.
6. All lot purchasers, when the conveyance is made with reference to a plat, are deemed, in the absence of fraud, to have full knowledge and notice of all that appears upon the plat, and with knowledge of the legal effect thereof, whether the rights thereby conferred upon the lot owners generally be to the advantage or disadvantage of any particular purchaser.
7. Where the land in question is separately assessed, the payment of taxes by a disseizor--or his predecessors in adverse possession--for a period of five consecutive years during the period of adverse occupancy is a prerequisite to the acquisition of title by adverse possession.
8. Where no corporate or other trustee is provided by statute or otherwise, the fee title to the dedicated land remains in the dedicator charged with a trust for the uses for which the dedication was made.
9. By the affirmative act of paying taxes, the trustee did all that was necessary to protect the lot-owning beneficiaries from a loss, through mere nonuser, of their right to use Maple Lane.
10. A cause of action which the defendant cannot maintain against the plaintiff alone, or one which cannot be determined without bringing in new parties plaintiff, cannot be pleaded as a counterclaim, at least without bringing in such new parties.
E. Luther Melin, Minneapolis, for appellants.
Vennum, Neville, Wright & Newhall, Minneapolis, for respondents.
Appeal from a judgment permanently enjoining defendants--and all persons acting under them--from preventing plaintiffs and any other lot owners, inclusive of their families and guests, from using the entire length and width of a strip of land or roadway designated as Maple Lane.
In 1908, the Minnetonka Realty Company, a corporation, as the fee owner of an island caused the same to be surveyed and platted into 42 lots as 'Shady Island, Lake Minnetonka, Hennepin County, Minnesota,' in full compliance with the requirements of M.S.A. c. 505. The instrument of dedication annexed to the plat expressly stated that the owner 'donates and dedicates to the public use forever Shady Island Road, and To the use of lot owners of said 'Shady Island * * *,' forever, Maple Lane, Oak Lane, and Cedar Lane as thereon shown.' The location of the disputed roadway known as Maple Lane, as well as the location of the lots owned by the respective parties, is shown on a Portion of the plat, here reproduced.
With specific reference to said plat, lots have been sold over the years to various individuals who have built residences principally for summer occupancy. James C. Bryant and Edith M. Bryant, two of the plaintiffs herein, since 1932 have been at all times the owners of lots 25 and 26. In the months of May and June 1945, defendants by various deeds of conveyance became, and ever since have been, the owners of lots 16, 18, 19, and 20, and the southwesterly 50 feet of lot 17. Lot 17, except the southwest 50 feet thereof--which has never been owned by defendants--was in January 1944, together with Cedar Lane, Oak Lane, and Maple Lane, conveyed by the Minnetonka Realty Company to one of the plaintiffs, namely, the Shady Island Association, with the proviso that 'The said lanes (were) to be held for the Joint use and benefit of the lot owners of said Shady Island.' The Shady Island Association is a corporation whose stockholders consist of the lot owners.
For a period of 25 years immediately prior to the acquisition by defendants of their lots, the residents of Shady Island, as well as others, had used the waters in front of the southwesterly 50 feet of lot 17 as a place of bathing. In going to these waters, it was customary to follow Maple Lane to lot 19, and then pass over lots 19, 18, and the southwesterly 50 feet of lot 17. The portion of Maple Lane lying between lot 16 and lots 17, 18, and 19 has never been developed for travel and is wholly unimproved. Defendants, shortly after acquiring lots 16, 19, and 20 for residential purposes, found that the peacefulness of their new abode was disturbed to an annoying extent by other Shady Island residents, their children and guests, who passed over lots 18, 19, and the southwesterly part of lot 17 to go swimming. In the hope of eliminating all disturbance, defendants proceeded in good faith to acquire ownership of the entire area affected by purchasing lot 18 and the southwesterly 50 feet of lot 17. They then sought to exclude as trespassers all persons, inclusive of the Bryants and other island residents, who attempted to pass over their property en route to the bathing beach, and also to bar such persons from passing over that part of Maple Lane contiguous to their lots. Plaintiffs thereupon brought this action to have the defendants permanently enjoined from interfering with the right of travel on Maple Lane and from interfering with the use of an alleged easement in the form of a footpath across lots 19, 18, and the southwesterly 50 feet of lot 17. The trial court found that for more than 15 years plaintiffs and other lot owners had had access to the bathing beach on the shore of the northwesterly 50 feet of lot 17 by passing across said lots, but concluded that in doing so they had acquired no easement, because no definite route had been followed for the full statutory period. The trial court further found that Maple Lane had been dedicated, under the original plat of 1908, to the perpetual use of the lot owners of Shady Island, and that the defendants had acquired no prescriptive right therein superior to the common right enjoyed by all lot owners. Judgment was entered (1) denying plaintiffs the right to an easement to a diagonal path across the said lots; (2) determining that defendants had acquired no right or title by prescription or otherwise to any part of Maple Lane, except such right of user as had been originally dedicated and granted to all lot owners; and (3) enjoining defendants from preventing plaintiffs, other lot owners, their families or guests from using Maple Lane for its full length and width. Defendants appeal from this judgment.
Properly raised by this appeal are the following issues:
(1) What is the nature or legal status of a roadway which has been dedicated--pursuant to statute--not to the use of the public as a whole, but only to the use of that fraction of the public which is represented by the lot owners within a certain platted area?
(2) Does a lot owner, whose lot has been purchased with reference to a plat pursuant to which certain streets or roadways have been dedicated to the use of the lot owners in the platted area, have a right or easement of user Only in the street or roadway upon which his lot abuts--for the purpose of ingress and egress to a public highway--or does his right or easement of roadway user extend to all the streets, alleys, and roadways in the platted area?
(3) Have defendants acquired by prescription any right in Maple Lane beyond the right enjoyed by the lot owners generally?
(4) Will Mere nonuser for any length of time operate as an abandonment of a street or roadway which has been dedicated pursuant to statute to the restricted use of the lot owners within a platted area?
1. In determining the nature or legal status of Maple Lane as a roadway, it is clear that it was expressly dedicated only to the use of the lot owners of the platted area--popularly known as Shady Island--and not to the use of the public as a whole. Further, we have the salient fact that the platting and dedication were made pursuant to M.S.A. § 505.01, which expressly authorizes a dedication to Any person or corporation other than the public as a whole. The statute reads: ...
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