Lawson v. Simonsen
| Decision Date | 03 July 1980 |
| Citation | 490 Pa. 509,417 A.2d 155 |
| Parties | Margaret Ann LAWSON, Appellee, v. James W. SIMONSEN, Appellant. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Samuel F. Bonavita, Warren, for appellee.
Before EAGEN, C. J., and O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, NIX, LARSEN, FLAHERTY and KAUFFMAN, JJ.
James Simonsen appeals from a decree of the Warren County Court of Common Pleas granting a permanent injunction in favor of appellee Margaret Ann Lawson. Appellant filed exceptions which were denied by the court en banc, as was his request for a rehearing. The Superior Court affirmed without opinion. We granted allocatur pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 724(a), and now reverse.
Appellee Lawson is the fee simple owner of land in Glade Township in Warren County, it having been conveyed to her by her parents on January 31, 1963. The prior owners, Henry and Ann Cobham, had executed a "release" dated June 16, 1881, in favor of the Buffalo, Pittsburgh & Western Railroad Co., and its successors, concerning a strip of land 66 feet wide extending through a portion of appellee's land. The Buffalo, Pittsburgh & Western laid track and other equipment along this land and operated a railroad thereon for a number of years. The Penn Central Transportation Co., as the successor to the Buffalo, Pittsburgh & Western, abandoned the line in the mid-1960s after the construction of the Kinzua Dam by the federal government. On May 26, 1977, the trustees in bankruptcy for Penn Central conveyed by quit claim deed to appellant all right, title and interest held by Penn Central to the strip of land, although Penn Central reserved the right to salvage the track and other material within six months of the conveyance. Penn Central failed to salvage the track within the six months and appellant began his own salvage operations. Appellee, believing the track and equipment to be hers, sought and obtained an injunction preventing appellant from removing the track and equipment and ordering him to replace and repair that which he already had taken away.
The trial court held that the 1881 "release" granted the Buffalo, Pittsburgh & Western a mere easement in the strip of land and that this easement was extinguished when the successor company abandoned the line. It further held that since the track and other equipment were affixed to the land, they became part of the land and became appellee's when the easement terminated. While we agree that the "release" conveyed only an easement, we disagree with the trial court over the disposition of the track and other equipment.
The parties and the trial court are in agreement that the question of whether the "release" conveyed a fee interest in the land or merely an easement may be answered by an examination of this Court's decision in Brookbank v. Bendum-Trees Oil Co., 389 Pa. 151, 131 A.2d 103 (1957), although each party would read that decision to support its own position. In Brookbank, the Court was presented with the question of what rights, if any, a railroad had to drill for natural gas under an abandoned railroad bed. To decide this question, the Court was called upon to interpret a written agreement which the railroad argued gave it a fee interest, but which the landowner claimed only gave the railroad an easement. 1 There we held the agreement conveyed only an easement to the railroad.
The agreement in the present case provides: 2
"Know all men by these presence that Henry Cobham of the Borough of Warren, County of Warren and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Ann Cobham, his wife, for and in consideration of the public and private advantages prospectively resolving from the construction of the proposed extension of the Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Western Railroad as well as of the sum of one dollar to them in hand paid, receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged do hereby grant and release unto the Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Western Railroad Company and its successors so much of the land of the said Henry Cobham and Ann Cobham, situate in the Township of Glade in the County of Warren aforesaid as may be necessary and convenient therefore according to the provisions of the Act incorporating said company and other laws relating thereto, without further lot or hindrance from them, their heirs or assigns, the land hereby released or intended so to being a piece or strip of land four rods (66 feet) in width extending through and along the line of survey of said railroad company (premises herein described).
The land hereby granted and released or intended so to be, being the legal right of way of said railroad company through the above described land, said right of way not to exceed four rods (66 feet) in width 33 feet on each side of the center of the main track.
The said Henry Cobham and Ann Cobham also grant and release unto the said railroad company land sufficient for the said company to construct a public or wagon road upon in place of the one occupied by the said company * * *."
In interpreting such documents, the court's "primary object must be to ascertain and effectuate what the parties intended." Brookbank v. Bendum-Trees Oil Co., at 156-57, 131 A.2d at 107. The traditional rules of construction to determine that intention are applicable in these circumstances, namely:
". . . (1) the nature and quantity of the interest conveyed must be ascertained from the instrument itself and cannot be orally shown in the absence of fraud, accident or mistake and we seek to ascertain not what the parties may have intended by the language but what is the meaning of the words . . .; (2) effect must be given to all the language of the instrument and no part shall be rejected if it can be given a meaning . . .; (3) if a doubt arises concerning the interpretation of the instrument it will be resolved against the party who prepared it . . .; (4) unless contrary to the plain meaning of the instrument, an interpretation given it by the parties themselves will be favored . . .; (5) "to ascertain the intention of the parties, the language of a deed should be interpreted in the light of the subject matter, the apparent object or purpose of the parties and the conditions existing when it was executed" . . .
Id., 157 at n. 6, 131 A.2d at 107. (emphasis in the original, case citations omitted).
The amount of consideration paid for the interest is a factor to be considered in determining the nature of the estate intended to be conveyed. In Brookbank, the consideration was $300.00, but the Court ruled that since there was no evidence as to the value of the land at the time of execution of the agreement, there was no way to determine whether the consideration was too small to convey a fee interest. Id. at 159, 131 A.2d 103. Here, the consideration was only $1.00. The land in question apparently extends 33,415 feet and is 66 feet wide. Surely even in 1881 the sum of $1.00 was insufficient to convey a fee interest in a strip of farm land 66 feet wide and 6 miles long. Appellant offers many unpersuasive and unsupported claims as to the sufficiency of this consideration. However, these arguments rely on facts totally unobtainable from the written document and we are not permitted to look beyond that document in cases, like the present one, where fraud, accident or mistake, have not been alleged. Id., at 157, 131 A.2d 103.
The Brookbank Court found it "inconceivable" that if the railroad had obtained a fee interest it would not have required a habendum clause and warranty of title. Id. at 162-64, 131 A.2d 103. So too here, the trial court found it unlikely that the present release was intended to convey a fee interest because it lacked a warranty of title. We agree. We are therefore satisfied under the authority of Brookbank and subsequent cases, see e. g., Fleck v. Universal-Cyclops Steel Corp., 397 Pa. 648, 156 A.2d 832 (1959); that the 1881 "release" conveyed only an easement for railroad purposes and not a fee interest. Proceeding from this premise, we must now consider the effect of the abandonment of that easement upon the ownership of the track and equipment.
Appellants contend that the track, ties, ballast and other materials placed upon the realty by the railroad do not become a part of realty; instead, they retain their nature as...
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Troha v. US
...to abandon the property interest, together with external acts by which such intention is carried into effect. Lawson v. Simonsen, 490 Pa. 509, 417 A.2d 155, 160 (1980); see also Burnier v. Dep't of Envtl. Resources, 148 Pa.Cmwlth. 530, 611 A.2d 1366, 1368 (1992). In order to establish the a......