Tiffany v. Town of Oyster Bay

• Decision Date: 03 June 1913
• Citation: 209 N.Y. 1,102 N.E. 585
• Parties: TIFFANY v. TOWN OF OYSTER BAY et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

209 N.Y. 1

102 N.E. 585

TIFFANY

v.TOWN OF OYSTER BAY et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 3, 1913.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.

Action by Louis C. Tiffany against the Town of Oyster Bay and others. From a judgment of the Appellate Division (141 App. Div . 720,126 N. Y. Supp. 910), affirming by a divided court a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Reversed.

Henry A. Uterhart, of New York City, for appellants.

Willard N. Baylis, of New York City, for respondent.

WILLARD BARTLETT, J.

This case is another controversy in the long series of litigations involving the true meaning and proper construction of ancient colonial charters relating to lands under water on Long Island; and it presents questions of considerable difficulty which have led to a very decided difference of opinion in the court below. The rights of the parties depend upon the title to the lands under water in the bay known as Cold Spring Harbor. The trial judge and a majority of the Appellate Division have held that this title, prior to the grant to the plaintiff, was vested in the state, while two of the Appellate Division justices are of opinion that it was granted to the town of Oyster Bay by the Andros patent of September 29, 1677, and hence that the state never acquired any interest in the land under water which it assumed to convey to the plaintiff, the right to the possession of which he has thus far successfully asserted in this action.

The plaintiff is the owner of about 400 acres of upland at Cove Neck, extending about 3,670 feet along the westerly shore of Cold Spring Harbor. On March 30, 1905, the state of New York executed and delivered to him a grant of the lands under water in front of this upland, for the purpose of erecting on the lands thus granted boathouses and other structures specified in the letters patent, which letters provided that the grant should become null and void unless the improvements were completed within five years. Prior to August 1, 1906, the plaintiff had erected a boathouse and other structures between high and low water mark in front of his uplands; when the officers and agents of the town of Oyster Bay partly demolished the same, acting under the direction of the town, and notified the plaintiff that he must not attempt to restore or maintain them, claiming to justify their action on the ground of the town's ownership of all the lands under water in Cold Spring Harbor by virtue of the title acquired under the Andros patent of 1677, which will be more fully considered hereafter. This suit was thereupon instituted to enjoin and restrain the town, its officers and agents, from entering upon the lands under water embraced in the letters patent from the state to the plaintiff, or interfering in any manner with his possession of the same. The trial judge decided that neither the town of Oyster Bay nor its predecessors acquired any title to the lands under water in Cold Spring Harbor below high-water mark, by virtue of the Andros patent or otherwise; that by virtue of the letters patent from the state aiready mentioned the plaintiff became and was the lawful owner of a beneficial enjoyment in the lands under water in front of his upland, as in terms thereby conveyed, and that the plaintiff was therefore entitled to the permanent injunction for which he prayed. Judgment was entered accordingly, and the present appeal is from the determination of the Appellate Division affirming that judgment.

The Andros patent, upon the interpretation of which the determination of this appeal depends, was executed on September 29, 1677, by Sir Edmund Andros, then Governor General of New York under James, Duke of York, to Henry Townsend, Sr., and six other persons named therein, as patentees for and on behalf of themselves and their associates, the freeholders and inhabitants of the town, which is characterized at the beginning of the patent as ‘a certaine Towne in the North Riding of Yorkshire upon Long Island, commonly called & knowne by the name of Oyster Bay, Scituate, lying and being on the North side of the said Island towards the Sound, having a certain tract of land thereunto belonging.’ The property conveyed to the patentees is thus described: ‘The East bounds whereof begin att the head of the COLD SPRING and so to range upon the Southward line from the SOUND to NORTH SEA to the SOUTH SEA cross the Island to the South East bounds of their South Meadows at a certaine River called by the Indyans WARRASKETUCK, then running along the Sea Cost Westerly to another certaine River called ARRASQUANG; then Northarly to the Eastermost extent of the Great Playness where the line divides Hempstead and Robert Williams bounds from thence stretching Westerly along the middle of the said Playnes till it bears South from the said Robert Williams markt tree at the Point of Trees called CANTIAGGE, thence on a North line to the said Markt Tree, and then on a North North West line Somewhat Westerly to the head of Hempstead Harbour, on ye East side so to the Sound, and from thence Easterly Along the Sound to the aforemenconed North and South Line which runs cross the Island by the COLD SPRING aforesaid, Bounded on the North by the Sound, on the East by Huntington Limmitts on the South part by the Sea and part by Hempstead Limmitts, and on the west by the Bounds of Hempstead aforesaid; including all the Necks of Land and Islands within the aforesd described Bounds and Limmitts.’

The difference between the parties relates chiefly to a part of the eastern boundary of the tract thus granted, namely, that portion between the head of Cold Spring Harbor, or the Cold Spring proper at the south end of the harbor and the sound. The plaintiff contends, and has satisfied the court below, that this part of the eastern boundary runs along the west shore of Cold Spring Harbor, thus excluding the harbor from the grant, while the defendants insist that if the Andros patent be construed as it should be with the prior patents of Huntington and Hose (now Lioyd's) Neck, the eastern boundary is coincident with the eastern shore of Cold Spring Harbor, thus including the whole of that harbor in the grant to Oyster Bay.

[1] The phrase ‘Huntington Limmitts' is a most important element in determining the location of the eastern boundary of the tract granted by the Andros patent. The draftsman of the patent manifestly contemplated a straight line passing through the head of Cold Spring Harbor and extending southward coincident with the western boundary of Huntington, through the middle of the island to the South Sea, and directly northward to the sound, except in so far as prior grants to Huntington and Horse Neck might prevent the continuance of a straight line in that direction. The first description in the patent ends, not at the head of Cold Spring Harbor, where it begins, but at a point on the Sound where the northern boundary, prolonged eastward, strikes the aforementioned north and south line which runs across the island by the Cold Spring...