Rowley v. Massachusetts Electric Company

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Writing for the Court: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, SPINA, COWIN, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.
• Citation: Rowley v. Massachusetts Electric Company, 438 Mass. 798, 784 NE 2d 1085 (Mass. 2003)
• Decision Date: 12 March 2003
• Parties: LINDA SARAFIN ROWLEY & others v. MASSACHUSETTS ELECTRIC COMPANY.

438 Mass. 798

784 NE 2d 1085

LINDA SARAFIN ROWLEY & others¹ v. MASSACHUSETTS ELECTRIC COMPANY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Hampshire.

November 5, 2002.

March 12, 2003.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, SPINA, COWIN, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.

Wendy H. Sibbison for the plaintiffs.

Vincent F. O'Rourke, Jr., for the defendant.

The following submitted briefs for amici curiae:

Henry H. Thayer for The Massachusetts Conveyancers Association, Inc., & another.

John A. Pike for Conservation Law Foundation.

Andrew M. Fischer & Mathias Neuber for Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition.

Andrea C. Ferster, of the District of Columbia, & Brennan F. Wall, Alexander A. Bernhard, & Sean T. Carnathan for Rails-to-Trails Conservancy.

Lawrence F. Scofield for Massachusetts Land Title Association.

CORDY, J.

In this case we must determine whether the owners of property abutting a former railway may claim title to the land within it pursuant to G. L. c. 183, § 58, a provision enacted to clarify ownership and ease the difficulty of identifying the owners of the small strips of land that lay beneath highways, streams, walls, and other similar boundaries of width that for generations have separated parcels of land. We conclude that they may.²

Background. The following background is undisputed. In 1866 the General Court enacted legislation allowing the New Haven and Northampton Railroad Company (railroad³) to extend its tracks from Northampton to Williamsburg. St. 1866, c. 66. Pursuant to the statute, the railroad filed "location plans" with the county commissioners identifying the most convenient route for the new tracks, including a branch track identified in 1875. By filing these plans the railroad automatically obtained easements over the land required to extend the route, Hazen v. Boston & Me. R.R., 2 Gray 574, 580 (1854) ("filing of the location is the act of taking [an easement on] the land," constituting "written, permanent, record evidence of the land taken"), but the fee interests in the land remained with the owners of the parcels affected by the taking.⁴ See Agostini v. North Adams Gas Light Co., 265 Mass. 70, 72-73 (1928) (filing railway location plan created easement; adjoining owners retained fee); Hall v. Boston & Me. R.R., 211 Mass. 174, 176 (1912) ("That which a railroad obtains by filing a location is merely an easement.... The fee remains in the former owners"). Through many transactions over more than 125 years following the taking of the easements, the plaintiffs' predecessors ultimately conveyed their titles to the plaintiffs, all of whom now own separate parcels of land (in fee simple) abutting the railway. In 1962 the railroad ceased operating along the railway, and in 1971 the Massachusetts Electric Company (Mass. Electric) acquired all of the interest that the railroad then retained in it.

On learning of a proposal to reshape the former railway into a public bicycle path, the plaintiffs filed suit alleging that Mass. Electric was wrongfully claiming fee title to the former railway and seeking damages for slander of title and trespass. They also sought a declaratory judgment that they owned fee title to the land within the railway segments adjacent to their respective properties in accordance with G. L. c. 183, § 58; the railroad's easements had expired when it had abandoned their use; and, therefore, Mass. Electric had no property interest in the railway and could not have agreed to its use as a bicycle path. A Superior Court judge granted summary judgment for Mass. Electric, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to claim title under § 58 because their deeds did not specifically describe their properties as bounded by "a way, whether public or private, watercourse, wall, fence or other similar linear monument." The plaintiffs appealed, and we granted their application for direct appellate review.⁵

Analysis. The outcome of the case turns on the proper interpretation of G. L. c. 183, § 58. In pertinent part, § 58 provides that "[e]very instrument passing title to real estate abutting a way, whether public or private, watercourse, wall, fence or other similar linear monument, shall be construed to include any fee interest of the grantor in such way, watercourse or monument...."⁶

The plaintiffs contend that their properties meet the precise requirements of the statute because they in fact abut a railway, which is a "way" or "other similar linear monument," and the grantors in their line of succession retained the fee interest when the railroad acquired the easements. Mass. Electric, on the other hand, asserts that because the language in the plaintiffs' deeds describes their properties either as bounded by "land of the [railroad]" or as "land now or formerly of said [railroad]," and not as bounded by the "railway," § 58 simply does not apply. Mass. Electric also contends that, even if the plaintiffs' deeds contained an adequate description, they still could not establish ownership in the railway pursuant to § 58, because a railway is not a "way" or "other similar linear monument" within the meaning of the statute.⁷

The only issues we must decide are whether G. L. c. 183, § 58, applies to property which in fact abuts a "way" or "other similar linear monument" even if the language in the deed does not specifically describe it in those terms; and, if so, whether a railway is a "way" or "other similar linear monument" within the meaning of § 58.⁸

A statute must be interpreted according to the intent of the Legislature "ascertained from all its words construed by the ordinary and approved usage of the language, considered in connection with the cause of its enactment, the mischief or imperfection to be remedied and the main object to be accomplished." Hanlon v. Rollins, 286 Mass. 444, 447 (1934). We begin, as we must, with the language of the statute. By its own words, it applies to instruments passing title to real estate "abutting" a way or other similar linear monument. Using standard rules of statutory construction and grammar, the phrase "abutting a way ... or other similar linear monument" modifies the noun phrase "real estate," which directly precedes it. We have previously held that real estate that abuts a way for purposes of § 58 is "property with frontage along the length of a way." Emery v. Crowley, 371 Mass. 489, 494 (1976). Consequently, a plain reading of the statute is that it applies to instruments that convey real estate that in fact has frontage along the length of a way or other similar linear monument. There is nothing in the statutory language itself that suggests that its effect is limited only to instruments that describe the real estate conveyed as bounded by a "way" or other similar linear monument. If that was the legislative intent, the wording of the statute could have easily reflected it.⁹ It does not.

We next look to the legislative history and cause of its enactment. General Laws c. 183, § 58, was enacted in 1971, and subsequently amended in 1973 and 1990. As described by Governor Francis W. Sargent in an April 9, 1971, letter addressed to the Legislature, its object was "to meet a situation where a grantor has conveyed away all of his land abutting a way or stream, but has unknowingly failed to convey any interest he may have in land under the way or stream, thus apparently retaining his ownership of a strip of the way or stream." 1971 House Doc. No. 5307 (returning bill for further amendment). Its effect was to quiet title to sundry narrow strips of land that formed the boundaries of other tracts, by establishing "an authoritative rule of construction for all instruments passing title to real estate abutting a way." Tattan v. Kurlan, 32 Mass. App. Ct. 239, 242 (1992). It was to be retroactively applied to all prior instruments with exceptions not relevant here.¹⁰

Before the Legislature created this rule, the common law included a presumption that "a deed bounding on a way conveys the title to the centre of the way if the grantor owns so far." Gould v. Wagner, 196 Mass. 270, 275 (1907). This presumption was rebuttable by evidence, including extrinsic evidence, of the grantor's contrary intent. Id. The rule applied to all boundaries "upon a fixed monument which has width, [such] as a way, stream or wall." Motley v. Sargent, 119 Mass. 231, 235 (1875). Its rationale was as follows:

"The theory of the law ... is, that by taking land for a highway the public take an easement only, and not a fee; that the fee must be in somebody, and not in abeyance, and remains in the abutter; that the public easement so completely takes all that can be made serviceable to the owner, that what remains cannot be considered of much value; and therefore, if he makes a new conveyance bounding `on the road,' and says nothing more, the presumption is, in the absence of all other proof, that the grantee takes [to the middle of the way]."

Smith v. Slocomb, 9 Gray 36, 37 (1857). See Boston v. Richardson, 13 Allen 146, 153 (1867) ("the law presumes that [the grantor] did not intend to reserve the title in a strip of land, not capable of any substantial or beneficial use by him, after having parted with the land by the side of it").

General Laws c. 183, § 58, embodies an even stronger presumption in favor of vesting title in abutters than the common-law rule that it superseded. Tattan v. Kurlan, supra at 243. In contrast to the common law, the presumption applies unless the instrument of conveyance "evidences a different intent [of the grantor] by an express [exception or] reservation," and extrinsic evidence may not be used to prove the grantor's intent to retain the fee to the way. Id. at 243-244. Nor may that intent be proved, as it could under the common law, by language that the property is bounded "by a side line" of a way. A.L. Eno & W.V. Hovey, Real Estate Law § 4.33 (3d ed. 1995). Compare G. L. c. 183, § 58 (b), with Casella v. Sneierson, 325 Mass. 85, 89 (1949).

If we were...