City of Camden v. McAndrews & Forbes Co.

• Decision Date: 17 November 1913
• Citation: 88 A. 1034,85 N.J.L. 260
• Parties: CITY OF CAMDEN v. McANDREWS & FORBES CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

88 A. 1034

85 N.J.L. 260

CITY OF CAMDEN

v. McANDREWS & FORBES CO.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Nov. 17, 1913.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to Circuit Court, Camden County.

Action by the City of Camden against the McAndrews & Forbes Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed in part and reversed in part.

Edwin G. C. Bleakly, of Camden, for plaintiff in error.

Lewis Starr, of Camden, for defendant in error.

PARKER, J. This is an ejectment by the city for the purpose of subjecting and opening to public use as part of a street a strip of land 20 feet wide and about 500 feet long, running approximately east and west, lying between the center and southerly lines of Winslow street as laid down on the city map, or the productions of those lines, terminating on the west in a so-called "private street" on filled land beyond original high-water mark in the Delaware river, and bounded on the east end by a railroad curve, which crosses the southwesterly corner of Winslow and Third streets. The city claimed title by dedication, and the appeal is from a nonsuit directed by the trial Judge. The original high-water line ran approximately north and south, at a distance of about 350 feet west of Third street, and substantially parallel therewith. As respects the part of the described premises lying beyond such high-water line, the claim is that Winslow street was dedicated to high-water line, and the subsequent filling in under riparian grants or other authority carried the street to the new line of high water, under the rule laid down in Hoboken Land & Improvement Co. v. Hoboken, 36 N. J. Law, 540. It was denied by the defendant that any dedication to the original high-water line had been shown, or indeed any dedication of Winslow street west of Third street, and the judge by his action sustained this position.

The claim of dedication rests on two maps and a number of deeds, most of them referring to one or the other map or to both. The first map is the official map known as the Yocum map of 1874. This shows Winslow street according to the projected city plan as extending from Eighth street to the river, a distance of about two-thirds of a mile. The irregular line apparently intended for high-water line seems to be double at the end of Winslow street, and there was some argument about the meaning and effect of this; but, for reasons that will appear, we find this point unnecessary to discuss. The other map is the property map of the Manufacturers' Land & Improvement Company, made also about 1874, and used by that company in making its sales. It will be hereafter referred to as the Land Company map. From this map and other evidence, it appears, and is not disputed, that at the time it was made the Land Company did not own any part of the property in question, or the land on either side of Winslow street further west than Broadway, four squares to the eastward of Third street; but between Broadway and the river its northerly boundary was a line parallel with and 20 feet south of the southerly line of Winslow street as platted. It is also material to note that Winslow street on this map does not run as far east as Eighth street, but stops at Broadway, that its westerly end and that of neighboring streets to the north are not tied up to any monument, but left indefinite and in the air, and that the high-water line is carried from Newton creek, about a mile to the south, up to the north boundary of the company's property (viz., the line 20 feet south of Winslow street), but not beyond that line, and consequently there is no indication from the map itself of the connection of Winslow street with high-water mark. Although the defendant derived its title to the premises claimed through the Land Company, said premises are not shown on this map as the property of that company, and, as already stated, were not its property at the time the map was made, but were conveyed to it by one Howell and wife in 1877, some two or three years later. The company made various conveyances referring to this map both by names of the streets and by block and lot numbers.

The rule is, of course, too well settled to admit of question that the use of such a map as a sales map, and reference to it in the deeds, and the description therein of lots as bounded on a designated street constituted a dedication to public use of the street as laid out thereon. Clark v. Elizabeth, 40 N. J. Law, 172. This court has so held with reference to the very tract platted on this Land Company map, in a litigation between the same parties but as to a different part of the tract. McAndrews & Forbes Co. v. Camden, 78 N. J. Eq. 244, 78 Atl. 232. But that decision related to Jefferson street, the next street to the south of Winslow street, and which was within the tract owned by the company when the map was made, and running between and through lots exhibited for sale.

The present case is different, and in the aspect now under examination presents the question whether the delineation on the map of a street which does not traverse or bound any of the owned property, coupled with sales of property by reference to such map but bounding on other streets, operates as a dedication of the firstmentioned street. We are clearly of opinion that it does not. Naturally an owner cannot dedicate streets over land that he does not own, and, as Winslow street from end to end was located on alien territory, the delineation of it on the map could answer no purpose except that of location, and to notify customers that such an actual or proposed street lay in a certain position with reference to the tract. There is no express recognition of Winslow street in any of the company's deeds except as hereinafter stated.

Nor did the subsequent extension by the company of its ownership north of the boundary line above described, and including the land within the lines of Winslow street, confer any efficacy on the map and deeds based thereon by way of dedication, so far as Winslow street was not mentioned in such deeds. The status was fixed by the map as made and the ownership at that time, and, while there was nothing to prevent the Land Company from recognizing and dedicating Winslow street at or after the time of acquiring the land covered by it, it would be extending the doctrine of dedication to an unwarranted length to hold that the mere acquisition of that territory, without more, would relate back to the date of the map, and create a dedication of land not then owned, and whose purchase, for all that appears, was not even contemplated.

On this branch of the case, then, we conclude that the Land Company's map and deeds based thereon had no effect by way of dedicating Winslow street.

The next point for consideration relates to the effect of deeds bounding the property therein conveyed on Winslow street without reference to any map....