Phillips v. Watuppa Reservoir Co.
| Decision Date | 25 November 1903 |
| Citation | 184 Mass. 404,68 N.E. 848 |
| Parties | PHILLIPS et al. v. WATUPPA RESERVOIR CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Arthur S. Phillips, for petitioners.
Jennings Morton & Brayton, for respondent.
This is a petition by three tenants in common to register their title to a tract of land on the river between Watuppa ponds and the dam of the respondent in Fall River. The court of registration found and ruled that the land is subject to an easement in favor of the respondent to flow the property to a specified depth, which easement precludes filling the land by the owners of the soil. A decree for the petitioners was entered, subject to this easement, and the petitioners excepted to certain rulings and refusals to rule touching the existence and nature of the easement. The petitioner Jennings disclaimed any right to deny the existence of the easement and the exceptions are prosecuted by the other two petitioners alone.
The questions are raised under St. 1826, p. 371, c. 31, in reference to the acts of the respondent as a corporation. By this statute the Watuppa Reservoir Company was incorporated 'for the purpose of constructing a reservoir of water in Watuppa pond, so called, * * * for the benefit of the manufacturing establishments on Fall river.' It is given 'power to make reserves of water in the Watuppa pond, so called, by erecting a dam across the outlet of said pond in the town of Troy,' so as to raise the water in the ponds to a specified height, and is authorized to acquire and hold real estate for this purpose by purchase or otherwise. There is also a provision for the recovery of damages by persons injured by the flowing. The town of Troy is now a part of the city of Fall River. In the year 1827 the respondent erected a dam on the river in the town of Troy at a little distance from the nearest pond, and has maintained it ever since. The petitioners' land is a swamp lying along the river between the dam and the pond, and until the entry of the decree of the Supreme Court of the United States in December, 1861, which established a new boundary line between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, it was in the state of Rhode Island. In a part of the land the respondent claims an easement under a deed which it received from one Currier on September 1, 1827, which was duly recorded, and which conveyed a perpetual 'right to flow or overflow' so much of the lot described as may be flowed by raising the water of the Watuppa ponds to a stated height. In the remainder of the land the respondent claims a similar right by prescription. Since the erection of the dam in 1827 the respondent has maintained it continually, and has thereby flowed the lands during the greater part of every year to the height prescribed by the deed. The land over which the right is claimed by prescription is included in another deed from one Dwelly to the respondent, dated September 14, 1827, which was duly executed and delivered, but which, instead of being recorded in the proper registry in Rhode Island, was recorded, by mistake, on March 25, 1828, in the registry of deeds for Bristol county. In 1862, after this land had become a part of Massachusetts, a transcript of the records of that part of the town of Tiverton, R. I., to which the land had previously belonged, was filed in the registry of deeds for Bristol county, and a person searching the records for conveyances in this part of All River previously to that date would examine this transcript instead of the earlier records in Bristol county. The petitioners contend that the acquisition of a title to the easement in this land by this respondent under the deed or by prescription was ultra vires, because the corporation was authorized to raise the waters of Watuppa ponds, and not the waters of the river below, and because the land was not then in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. We are of opinion that this contention is without foundation. The corporation was authorized to erect a dam 'across the outlet of said ponds in the town of Troy.' The river was the outlet of the ponds, and the dam was erected in the town of Troy. The precise point on the river at which the dam should be erected was not fixed by the statute. The distance of the dam from the pond is not stated in the bill of exceptions, but there is nothing to show that it was unreasonably great for the construction of a reservoir of water in the ponds, under authority of the statute. The fact that the land between the dam and the pond was in another state did not make the conduct of the corporation ultra vires, so long as the corporation did nothing in violation of the law of that state. Kennebec County v. Augusta Insurance Company, 6 Gray, 204-208. Moreover, the conduct of the respondent in this particular has been considered by the court in previous cases, and treated as within the authority of its charter. Watuppa Reservoir Company v. Mackenzie, 132 Mass. 71; Watuppa Reservoir Company v. Fall River, 134 Mass. 267-271.
The petitioners contend that the deed from Currier was not a conveyance of an easement,...
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