People ex rel. Burnham v. Jones

• Decision Date: 05 March 1889
• Citation: 20 N.E. 577,112 N.Y. 597
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. BURNHAM v. JONES et al., Commissioners of Land-Office.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

112 N.Y. 597

20 N.E. 577

PEOPLE ex rel. BURNHAM

v.JONES et al., Commissioners of Land-Office.¹

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 5, 1889.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, Third department.

For opinion of the general term, see 2 N. Y. Supp. 149.

Chas. F. Tabor, Atty Gen., for appellants.

Wm. B. Hornblower, for respondent.

RUGER, C. J.

The principal question in this case relates to the riparian proprietorship of a strip of land extending about 100 feet along the south shore of Lake Ontario, at the village of Charlotte, in Monroe county. The question arose over an application to the commissioners of the land-office for a grant from the state of land under water in front of said premises, made by the Bartholomay Brewing Company of Rochester, claiming to be the owners of the uplands adjoining the lake. This claim was contested before the commissioners by one Charles G. Burnham, who also claimed title thereto, and upon a trial of such claims the commissioners decided to award the grant to the brewery company. Upon a certiorari brought by Burnham the proceedings were removed into the supreme court, and upon a hearing thereon the award of the commissioners was reversed, and the application denied. The commissioners appeal from this reversal to this court.

A determination of the questions presented involves purely a question of law, and is controlled by the construction to be given to the deeds presented by the respective parties and the statutes giving authority to the commissioners to execute grants of lands under navigable water for the state. The board of commissioners of the land-office is organized under section 5, art. 5, of the constitution, and its powers and duties are defined by section 6 of the same article to be such ‘as now are or hereafter may be prescribed by law.’ Their powers and duties, so far as the questions in this case are affected, may be found in 1 Rev. St. (7th Ed.) 573 et seq. By section 67 of the statutes referred to the commissioners were authorized to make grants of land under the waters of navigable rivers and lakes in the state to the proprietors of the adjacent uplands, but they were expressly prohibited from making such grants to other persons, and such grants, if made, were declared to be void. Before any grant is authorized to be made, the applicant therefor is required to give six weeks' notice of his application, by advertisement in a newspaper of the county where the land is situated, and post a copy of such advertisement on the door of the court-house of such county. Section 70. The commissioners have authority to compel the attendance of witnesses in an application pending before them, and, by implication, the right to take testimony, hear counsel, and adjudicate upon the questions presented. Chapter 134, Laws 1839.

The hearing in question was had before the commissioners in pursuance of the authority of the statutes referred to, and both the relator and the Bartholomay Brewing Company were present and heard by their witnesses and counsel in support of their respective claims. Both claimed title to the disputed premises by virtue of conveyances from Whitney, the conceded original owner,-the brewing company under a deed to one Upton, dated in 1873, and the relator under one dated in 1886. The real question is therefore whether the first deed conveyed title to the premises in dispute, or not. The uncontradicted evidence in the case shows that there was a strip of land situated between the lake and the premises embraced in the metes and bounds contained in the first deed, and the adjudication by the commissioners was made upon the assumption that such deed conveyed the title thereof to the grantors of the Bartholomay Brewing Company. The adjudication proceeded upon the ground that the true construction of the deed did not confine the grantees to the land included within the metes and bounds, but extended beyond them to the natural monument constituted by the waters of the lake. The rule is well settled that where there is an uncertainty as to the plot of land intended to be conveyed, arising out of difference between the land described by metes and bounds and that embraced in lines extending to natural or artificial monuments or objects mentioned in the deed, that the former shall give way, as being less certain, and be controlled by the latter description. Wendell v. People, 8 Wend. 183;Yates v. Van De Bogert, 56 N. Y. 531. But this rule is not inflexible, and is applicable only where there is ambiguity in the description and the intention of the parties has been left in doubt by the language of the conveyance. People v. Colgate, 67 N. Y. 512;Higinbotham v. Stoddard, 72 N. Y. 94;Railroad Co. v. Stigeler, 61 N. Y. 348. When that intention is clearly revealed in the instrument, it furnishes the rule by which deeds, as well as statutes and other contracts, must be construed. Case v. Dexter, 106 N. Y. 553, 13 N. E. Rep. 449. The description in the deed of 1873 is, so far as it is material in this case, as follows: ‘Part of lot 20 in the village of Charlotte, * * * beginning in the west line of a private street or avenue, thirty feet wide, extending from Beach avenue parallel with, and 250 feet easterly from, the west line of said lot 20, at a point seventy-three feet northerly from the north line of Beach avenue; thence northerly along said street 210 feet to the beach of Lake Ontario; thence westerly at right angles 100 feet * * * to lands of J. D. Husband and others; * * * thence southerly at right angles 210 feet along said Husband's land; thence easterly at right angles 100 feet to place of beginning,-together with the use and privilege of the beach at the end of said street, and for a distance of 100 feet westerly therefrom, in common with the owners of lots on said private street and the owners of lots in the south-west quarter of said lot for bathing and boating.’ As claimed by the brewing company, the significant words in the deed are those which describe their easterly line as running northerly ‘to the beach of Lake Ontario,’ and from thence to Husband's line.

We are referred by the learned attorney general to authorities holding that ordinarily a grant of lands under the name of a beach, or a boundary of lands upon, by, or along a beach, would be held synonymous with the words ‘shore’ or ‘strand,’ and as having reference to and including only the lands washed by the sea between high-water and low-water mark. Trustees, etc., v. Kirk, 68 N. Y. 459. Such undoubtedly would be the general interpretation of similar words if there were nothing in the deed showing an intention to the contrary; but this rule of construction would necessarily give way, under all authorities, to any clearly expressed intention to a contrary effect contained in the deed. Here the words themselves are equivocal, as they purport to convey the line at one point ‘to the beach,’ and according to general understanding such words would not include any part of the lands referred to as the terminal point. Their literal signification is satisfied by a line which touches the beach at a single point; but even this might be overcome if other language in the deed showed an intention to give the grantees title in the beach or a water front on the lake. Bedlow v. Dock Co., 19 N. E. Rep. 800, (decided in court of appeals, January, 1889.) The contrary of such an intention is, we think, clearly and unequivocally expressed in the deed. Not only is the north line described to be a straight line, not following the natural sinuosities of a shore or water front, but runs to a fixed point in the line of Husband's land, forming a mathematical parallelogram, plainly opposed to the theory of a diversion to accommodate the irregularities of a varying line. Higinbotham v. Stoddard, 72 N. Y. 94;People v. Colgate, 67 N. Y. 512. A circumstance, however, which is quite decisive upon this point is the clause conveying an easement only in the land beyond the expressed line to the grantees therein, thus implying the existence of land between the land granted and the lake to which the grantor claimed title, and in which he assumed the right to grant an easement. Mather v. Chapman, 40 Conn. 400.

It would be a manifest absurdity to suppose that the grantor was attempting to convey an easement to grantees in lands in whom he had already by the same instrument vested an absolute title in fee. The latter clause, upon the assumption of a conveyance of a fee by the prior part of the deed, could have no operation, and...