Reardon v. Murphy
| Citation | 163 Mass. 501,40 N.E. 854 |
| Parties | REARDON v. MURPHY. |
| Decision Date | 24 May 1895 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
Robert S. Gorham, for plaintiff.
Sherman L. Whipple and Robert W. Frost, for defendant.
This is a bill in equity to enforce a restriction contained in a deed of land conveyed by the plaintiff to the defendant. A decree was entered for the plaintiff by a single justice of this court, and the case comes before us on report. The words of the restriction are as follows: "No building erected on said premises shall be placed at a less distance than twenty feet from said easterly line of Parsons street." The front line of the main body of the house was 20 feet from the street. Attached to the house, and extending along the entire front, was a piazza about 8 feet wide, encircled by a railing, and having a roof supported by posts. The whole of the piazza was within the restricted space. The question is was the piazza a "building," within the terms of the restriction? We have no doubt that it was and that the plaintiff was entitled to the relief granted by the single justice.
In Attorney General v. Gardiner, 117 Mass. 492, a structure three feet high, erected within a restricted space for coal bins, while considered as no part of the defendant's house, was held to be of itself a building. The same has been held as to a pavilion. Buck v Adams, 45 N.J.Eq. 552, 17 A. 961. See, also, Blakemore v. Stanley, 159 Mass. 6, 33 N.E. 689. Bay windows are undoubtedly part of a house, and cannot extend over restricted ground. Sanborn v. Rice, 129 Mass. 387, 395; Payson v. Burnham, 141 Mass. 547, 6 N.E. 708; Manners v. Johnson, 1 Ch.Div. 673.
In Bagnall v. Davies, 140 Mass. 76, 2 N.E. 786, the restriction was that no building should be erected within 20 feet of a certain street. The front line of the defendant's house was 20 feet from the street. In front of this was a piazza, the front line of which was 14 feet from the street. The piazza was covered by a continuation of the roof of the building, which extended to within less than 14 feet of the street. In the roof was a projecting dormer window, by means of which a portion of a room in the second story, 71/4 feet wide, out of which this window opened, was carried to a point 17 feet from the street. The posts which supported the projecting portion of the second story were 6 inches in diameter, and supported by brick piers resting on the ground. The defendant in ...
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