Hurd v. General Electric Co.

• Decision Date: 18 June 1913
• Parties: HURD v. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

215 Mass. 358

102 N.E. 444

HURD v. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

June 18, 1913

COUNSEL

Sherman L. Whipple and Alexander Lincoln, both of Boston (Lyman E Hurd, of Boston, of counsel), for appellant.

Wm. H Niles, of Lynn, Robert P. Clapp, of Boston, and Elisha M Stevens, of Lynn, for appellee.

OPINION

RUGG C.J.

This is a bill in equity by which the plaintiff seeks to establish a right of way over Pitkin street, so called, in the city of Lynn, as appurtenant to a lot of land owned by him. The plaintiff is the successor in title to George E. and Frank Curtis, and his alleged right of way depends upon the construction of a deed to them dated on July 27, 1881, by Gustavus A. Fairchild, who was then owner of a tract of land including that under, and adjacent on both sides to what is now Pitkin street. That deed described by lengths of line the other boundaries of the lot, and concluded with these words: 'Westerly on a proposed street to be laid out fifty feet wide one hundred eighty feet, be all of said measurements more or less, with a right of way over said proposed street.' The westerly boundary line of the lot conveyed was 180 feet in length. The deed contained no reference to any plan nor to other deeds or instruments by which the 'proposed street' or 'the right of way over' it may be identified. The case was tried before a judge of the superior court, who found all the material facts, and then drew 'the inference and therefore' found 'that at the date of the conveyance to the Curtises there did not exist in the contemplation of the grantor or grantee any other or different proposed street than such as lay adjacent to the granted premises.'

It has been argued that this finding of intention on the part of Gustavus at the time of the Curtis deed stands as a finding of fact which under the familiar rule is not to be reversed unless plainly wrong. There is force in this contention. But for the purposes of this decision it is assumed in favor of the plaintiff that this inference was one drawn by the trial judge from the facts found by him and not one made by him upon conflicting evedence oral in whole or in part, and hence that the appellate court stands in the same place as the judge who heard the case. Harvey-Watts Co. v. Worcester Umbrella Co., 193 Mass. 138, 143, 78 N.E. 886, 10 L. R. A. (N. S.) 125, 9 Ann. Cas. 1053.

The facts to be considered are those substantially contemporaneous with or prior to the Curtis deed, which contains the language to be construed. The acts of Henry Fairchild eight and more years after the date of the Curtis deed throw no light upon the intent of the parties to that deed in using the words 'proposed street to be laid out fifty feet wide,' for several reasons. He was not a party to the Curtis deed. His acts are so far subsequent and are so disconnected with that deed as to forbid the inference that they had relation to it as parts of the same transaction or were made in explanation or characterization of it. They have no tendency to show a practical construction of that deed by the parties, both because of the remoteness of time and because the ownership of both tracts had changed in the meantime. Such conduct affords no aid in ascertaining the meaning and intention of the parties to the Curtis deed. Acts of a later owner, long after the deed to be construed, with a purpose which may have been far different, shed no light upon the interpretation of doubtful language in that deed. Rogers v. Powers, 204 Mass. 257, 264, 90 N.E. 514.

No contention is made that the facts found by the judge are not supported by the evidence. No other conclusions than those reached by him as to the extraneous facts seem possible on the record. The precise question is whether on these facts the words 'proposed street' as used in the Curtis deed from Gustavus A. Fairchild in 1881 mean the Pitkin street shown on a plan caused to be recorded by his brother Henry who was his successor in title in 1892 11 years afterwards. The meaning of these words in the Curtis deed is for the court, but all the material facts existing at the time concerning the subject matter may be considered for the purpose of ascertaining the sense in which the language was used. It is important for the court so far as possible to place itself in the position of the parties at the time when the words were chosen with all the knowledge of attendant circumstances in their possession, and then to determine the natural and probable signification which reasonable persons would have attached to this language. The situation in 1881 when the Curtis deed was made, was this: The only street in the immediate neighborhood was West Neptune street, by which alone main thoroughfares of travel could be reached from the lot conveyed to the Curtises. There was built upon the granted premises a dwelling house which faced on West Neptune street, and in the rear reaching almost to its southerly line a considerable building called the pickle factory, of which the Curtises were lessees and which they had used for making pickles. This building was close to the westerly line of the lot and the only access to it was by a way from West Neptune street which Gustavus A. Fairchild had constructed and extended for the purpose of reaching it...