Maule Industries, Inc. v. Sheffield Steel Products, Inc., 58-2
| Decision Date | 14 October 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 58-2,58-2 |
| Citation | 105 So.2d 798 |
| Parties | MAULE INDUSTRIES, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellant, v. SHEFFIELD STEEL PRODUCTS, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellee |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Salley & Roman, Miami, for appellant.
John H. Gunn, Miami, for appellee.
Appellant, the defendant in the trial court, has appealed from a summary decree which struck certain defenses and which granted specific performance. Reservation of jurisdiction for trial of certain issues relating to damages made the decree interlocutory rather than final.
Seminole Rock & Sand Company, owners of certain lands over which there ran a spur track connected to the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, conveyed to the plaintiff Sheffield Steel Products, Inc., a parcel traversed by the spur line.
The deed, a copy of which was attached to the complaint, contained certain covenants relating to maintenance by the grantor, its successors and assigns, of the railroad facilities for use by the grantee, and its successors and assigns. 1
From the time of the conveyance in 1952 until April 1956, the plaintiff-grantee used the railroad facilities extending over the other lands owned by its grantor, and during such time these facilities were maintained and kept in good repair by the grantor.
In 1956, there was a foreclosure of a mortgage encumbering lands of the grantor, including those over which ran the spur line connecting with the spur line on grantee's parcel. The defendant Maule Industries, Inc., became the purchaser at the foreclosure sale. After acquiring those lands, Maule continued to allow plaintiff to use the railroad facilities until March 1957, although Maule disputed plaintiff's claim that Maule had maintained its tracks during that period.
In 1957, Maule notified plaintiff of its position that plaintiff had only an easement over Maule's land for railroad purposes, and that Maule was under no obligation to furnish and maintain such railroad facilities. Thereafter, this suit was commenced for specific performance of the covenant, and for damages.
Defendant relied on certain affirmative defenses, set out in the answer. 2 The chancellor sustained a motion of plaintiff to strike those defenses, decreed specific performance of the covenant to furnish the railroad facilities and retained jurisdiction to ascertain the amount of plaintiff's damages.
We deem it necessary to discuss three of the points raised under appellant's sixteen assignments of error: Appellant's contention (1) that the trial court misinterpreted the language of the covenant, (2) that the covenant in the deed was purely a personal obligation of plaintiff's grantor and not a covenant running with the land, and (3) that appellant was a bona fide purchaser without notice, actual or constructive, of the covenant and, therefore, such an obligation could not be imposed upon it.
On the first point, appellant argues that the covenant can not be construed to require or provide for the furnishing and upkeep of the railway facilities across its land. In decreeing that appellant should 'restore to an adequate condition for the carriage of railroad freight cars thereon' and to 'thereafter maintain such facilities in an adequate condition', the chancellor required no more than was essential to secure to the covenantee the benefit of the covenant calling for the covenantor to 'keep open railroad facilities running over other lands of the' appellant, and the covenant that appellant should provide 'adequate railroad facilities * * * at all times' to the covenantee. In arguing that the covenant should be interpreted only to mean that the covenantor, its successors and assigns, should allow the covenantee to use the railroad facilities on and across the former's lands but without obligation to maintain such facilities, the appellant urges upon us a construction which is not warranted under the language used and is inconsistent with the clear meaning and intent of the covenant.
We turn now to the question of whether the covenant was a covenant running with the land. A covenant running with the land differs from a merely personal covenant in that the former concerns the property conveyed and the occupation and enjoyment thereof, whereas the latter covenant is collateral or is not immediately concerned with the property granted. If the performance of the covenant must touch and involve the land or some right or easement annexed and appurtenant thereto, and tends necessarily to enhance the value of the property or renders it more convenient and beneficial to the owner, it is a covenant running with the land. The covenant in question comes within the above stated rules and constitutes a covenant running with the land. See 7 Thompson on Real Property, Perm.Ed., § 3622, p. 111; 3 Tiffany on Real Property, 3d Ed., § 854, pp. 455-462; and 14 Am.Jur., Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions, §§ 19, 20, pp. 495-498. As discussed in the last mentioned authority (§ 20, p. 496-497):
'The primary test whether the covenant runs with the land or is merely...
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