Central Vermont Railway Company v. R. C. Bowers Granite Co.

• Decision Date: 06 October 1926
• Citation: Central Vermont Railway Company v. R. C. Bowers Granite Co., 134 A. 608, 100 Vt. 26 (Vt. 1926)
• Parties: CENTRAL VERMONT RAILWAY COMPANY v. R. C. BOWERS GRANITE COMPANY ET AL
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

134 A. 608

100 Vt. 26

CENTRAL VERMONT RAILWAY COMPANY v. R. C. BOWERS GRANITE COMPANY ET AL

Supreme Court of Vermont

October 6, 1926

November Term, 1925.

Opinion filed October 6.1926.

ACTION OF EJECTMENT.Pleas, general issue, statute of limitations and adverse possession.Trial by jury at the March Term 1925, Washington County, Fish, J., presiding.Verdict directed against defendantR. C. Bowers Granite Company, and judgment on verdict.Said defendant company excepted.The opinion states the case.

Judgment affirmed.

H.C Shurtleff for the defendants.

Present WATSON, C. J., POWERS, TAYLOR, SLACK, and BUTLER, JJ.

OPINION

BUTLER

This is ejectment.Pleas, the general issue, the statute of limitations, and adverse possession.On trial a verdict was directed for defendantR. C. Bowers, without an exception being taken.A verdict was directed for the plaintiff against the defendant, the R. C. Bowers Granite Company, which defendant bring this case to this Court upon exceptions.

The case stood upon the plaintiff's evidence.No evidence was introduced by the defendant, with the exception of one exhibit, a lease covering the land situate immediately west of the demanded premises, over which there was no dispute.

The demanded premises are situated in Montpelier, on the northerly bank of the Winooski River, and are occupied by the defendant, for a storehouse.They are contiguous to and claimed as a part of the railroad yard of the plaintiff, one track of which extends past and close to a platform attached to and northerly of the storehouse.The storehouse stands with the river on the south of it and this spur track on the north of it.

The plaintiff based its title upon two deeds, the first from Joseph Reed to the Vermont Central Railroad Company, dated August 3, 1847, and conveying parcel referred to as No. 6, and the second from Mahlon Cottrill to the same company dated March 30, 1850, conveying parcel referred to as No. 7 in plaintiff's plan of lots.The demanded premises are claimed to lie partly in each of these two parcels.

It was conceded on trial that by these two deeds the Vermont Central Railroad Company became the owner of the land therein described, and that the plaintiff is the successor in title of the Vermont Central Railroad Company, and owns the land described in those two deeds unless deprived of such ownership by the adverse possession claimed by the defendant.

The first question raised is whether the demanded premises lie within the description of the deeds.The plan showing the claimed boundaries of the two parcels, produced by the plaintiff, was admitted, without objection, in connection with the testimony of the civil engineer who prepared it, "as evidence of what the plan shows."This plan locates the demanded premises as claimed by the plaintiff.

The parcels Nos. 6 and 7 appear thereon to extend from State Street in Montpelier on the north, to the Winooski River on the south.Each lot has a width of 110 feet, and they lie side by side, the easterly boundary of parcel No. 6 being the westerly boundary of parcel No. 7.

It is objected by the defendant that the plan shows the lot lines as they are today, and not as they were at the date of the deeds.But the evidence was otherwise.It is true that the civil engineer testified that the map represented the lots on State Street, the streets themselves and the river as they were at the time of the trial.But it is apparent from his testimony that he did not mean the lots as at present divided and occupied, but the lots as they existed at the dates of the deeds.He said this, specifically, and detailed the steps taken by him in plotting the lines.He testified that he was acquainted with the entire line of the Central Vermont Railway, from St. Albans to White River Junction and had surveyed it all, and that there was no other place anywhere near where Nos. 6 and 7 could be fitted in; that the plan was correct; and that parcels Nos. 6 and 7 embraced the land in dispute.He also testified to the location of the corners of the parcels in dispute by old stone monuments on State Street, which correspond exactly with the distances given in the deeds of these parcels, and other parcels contiguous to them, also acquired by the Vermont Central Railroad Company.

Defendant contended, however, that the Cottrill deed, which is Exhibit 2, specifies no southern boundary and so does not include the land in question.The Cottrill deed covering parcel No. 7, though it does not state a southern boundary conveys "a certain piece of land in Montpelier Village lying on the southerly side of the Winooski turnpike road, being the Campbell Place (so-called)," bounding it "Northerly by said turnpike road (State Street), Westerly by land deeded to the said Railroad by Joseph Reed and Easterly by land deeded the said Railroad Company by Daniel Baldwin, and by land now owned by the Vermont Mutual Fire Insurance Company,...