In re Robbins

• Decision Date: 10 August 1885
• Parties: In the Matter of the Application of DANIEL M. ROBBINS and another to vacate certain streets in Ramsey county.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

34 Minn. 99

In the Matter of the Application of DANIEL M. ROBBINS and another to vacate certain streets in Ramsey county.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

August 10, 1885.

Daniel M. Robbins and the Northwestern Elevator Company, under Gen. St. 1878, c. 29, § 12, made application to the district court for Ramsey county to vacate certain portions of Vandalia and Central streets in "Hewitt's Out-Lots" in Ramsey county, and asked the court to adjudge the title to the streets vacated to be in the Northwestern Elevator Company.

On the hearing before Brill, J., it appeared that Vandalia street is eighty feet wide and lies wholly within "Hewitt's Out-Lots," and that Central street is forty feet wide and forms the eastern boundary of "Hewitt's Out-Lots," the adjoining land being unplatted. The respondents, Alice Hewitt and others, the platters and original owners of "Hewitt's Out-Lots," opposed the application and asked that the title to the streets, if vacated, be adjudged to be in them. Judgment was directed and entered vacating the streets as prayed for, and adjudging the title to the portion of Vandalia street vacated, and to the west twenty feet of the portion of Central street vacated, to be in the Northwestern Elevator Company. The petitioners appeal from this judgment.

Cyrus J. Thompson, for appellants.

J. M. Gilman, and M. D. Munn, for respondents.

VANDERBURGH, J.

In the year 1880, a certain tract of land, described as the N. E. ¼ of section 32, township 29, range 23, in Ramsey county, was surveyed, laid out, and platted by the proprietor into village lots, under the name of "Hewitt's Out-lots." The streets therein were laid out uniformly 80 feet in width, except Central street in question, which was laid out on the easterly margin of the tract, and was only 40 feet wide. The petition in this case embraced an application among other things, to vacate a portion of Central street. The petitioners have acquired, by grant from the original proprietor, certain lots embraced within the plat, and fronting that portion of Central street proposed to be vacated. The land adjoining the street on the east is still unplatted, and is not owned by the respondents; and the proprietors thereof, of course, own no part of the fee of such street. The court granted the petition and vacated the street, but adjudged the petitioners to be entitled to the fee of the west 20 feet of Central street opposite their lots, and that they were entitled to take to the centre line only of the street.

The question here presented is whether, where a street or alley is laid wholly on one's own land, and is located on the margin of his tract, so that he owns nothing beyond, (the adjoining proprietor having no interest in the fee of such street or alley,) the whole of the street opposite a lot designated as such in a deed, and bounded on the street, passes to a grantee of the original proprietor?

Where, by the terms of a deed, the land conveyed is bounded by a street or highway, the grantee takes presumptively ad filum viæ as the natural boundary line between opposite proprietors; the reason of the rule being that the adjoining owners are presumed to have originally furnished the land in equal proportions for the sole purpose of a highway. Dunham v. Williams, 37 N. Y. 251; Stiles v. Curtis, 4 Day, 328; Woolrych on Ways, *5. So a deed of lots conveyed as represented in a town plat, is presumed to include a grant of the soil to the centre of the street, and it passes as parcel of the land and not as an appurtenant. Bissell v. New York Central R. Co., 23 N. Y. 61. This presumption, however, yields when a different intention is clearly manifested, or when the evidence shows there could be no foundation for it, as where the grantor at the time owned no part of the street, the same being laid wholly on the land of another. Dunham v. Williams, supra; King's Co. Ins. Co. v. Stevens, 87 N. Y. 287, 293, 294; 3 Kent, Comm. *434; Champlin v. Pendleton, 13 Conn. 23; Watrous v. Southworth, ...