United States v. Certain Land in City of Augusta, Maine

• Decision Date: 08 July 1963
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 7-103.
• Citation: 220 F. Supp. 696
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. CERTAIN LAND IN the CITY OF AUGUSTA, COUNTY OF KENNEBEC, STATE OF MAINE, and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

220 F. Supp. 696

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. CERTAIN LAND IN the CITY OF AUGUSTA, COUNTY OF KENNEBEC, STATE OF MAINE, and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 7-103.

United States District Court D. Maine, S. D.

July 8, 1963.

Alton A. Lessard, U. S. Atty., William E. McKinley, Asst. U. S. Atty., Portland, Me., for plaintiff.

Richard B. Sanborn, Augusta, Me., for defendant.

GIGNOUX, District Judge.

This is a proceeding by the United States of America for the condemnation of certain land in Augusta, Maine for the construction of a post office. The property condemned consists of certain numbered lots, owned by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, Maine, and certain other land designated as a "Pond," owned by M. Haynes Wheeler, all as shown on a recorded plan of a residential development known as "Glenmere." The compensation claims of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland and M. Haynes Wheeler have both been settled. The present claimants, Aline E. Anthony, Sidney S. Anthony, Helen F. Bragg and Bessie B. Stevens, are the owners of other numbered lots on the "Glenmere" Plan adjacent to the property condemned. They have filed an answer to the complaint, in which they claim an interest in the land taken by the government by virtue of valid restrictive covenants in favor of the lots owned by them that the lots taken by the government be used only for residential purposes. For the destruction of their rights under these covenants, they assert that they are entitled to compensation. No land of these claimants was actually taken in the condemnation.

At pre-trial conference, the parties agreed that prior to a jury trial on the issue of just compensation, the following legal issues should be resolved by the Court on the basis of a stipulation of facts, briefs and oral argument:

I. Whether or not the claimants had a compensable interest in the land taken in this proceeding by virtue of the restrictive covenants in their deeds.

II. Whether or not, if the claimants had a compensable interest in said premises, the measure of the just compensation to which they are entitled in this proceeding is the diminution in value of claimants' adjoining premises.

III. Whether or not the so-called "Pond" area as shown on the "Glenmere" Plan was dedicated as a pond for the benefit of the numbered lots shown on the Plan.

The stipulation of facts discloses the following situation: In 1933, the original owners of all the property in question laid out and platted a plan of "Glenmere," which was duly recorded in the Kennebec County Registry of Deeds. The development borders on Sewall Street and Western Avenue in Augusta, and consists of 18 numbered lots, an entrance roadway, and an area designated "Pond." By separate deeds in 1936, the then owners of the entire tract, Hope Haynes Wheeler and Muriel Sturgis Haynes, conveyed Lots 16, 17 and 18 to the claimant Helen F. Bragg; Lot 6 to the claimant Aline E. Anthony;¹ and Lot 5 to the claimant Bessie B. Stevens. With the exception of the deed to Lot 18 and to the southerly half of Lot 16, which contained no restrictions, all of these deeds contained substantially the following restrictions:

"No dwelling or other principal building shall at any time be placed on said lot costing less than Five Thousand ($5000) Dollars, and no building or erections thereon shall be used for commercial or industrial purposes. All buildings erected on said lot shall be placed at least twenty (20) feet back from the front line thereof."

In 1947, Hope Haynes Wheeler and Muriel Sturgis Haynes conveyed the remaining numbered lots on the "Glenmere" Plan to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland, subject to the following restrictions:

"It is mutually agreed between the grantors and the grantee herein that no dwelling or other buildings shall be erected upon the premises above described during the lifetime of the grantor, Hope Haynes Wheeler.

"It is further mutually agreed that at no time shall the premises herein conveyed, or any buildings or erections thereon be used for commercial or industrial purposes, and that all buildings erected on said lots shall be placed at least twenty feet back from the front line of said lots."

By complaint filed in the Kennebec County Superior Court in December, 1959, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland sought to have the restrictions in his deed declared "to be cancelled, destroyed, removed and of no further force and effect" because of a material change in the character of the neighborhood in which "Glenmere" is located, which he alleged to have become substantially devoted to commercial and business purposes. Named as defendants in this complaint were Mrs. Bragg, Mrs. Anthony, Mrs. Stevens and M. Haynes Wheeler, the owner of the "Pond" area shown on the Plan. Following a hearing, Chief Justice Williamson of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, sitting as a single justice, entered a decree in July, 1961, dismissing the complaint and stating, "Said premises of the plaintiff are subject to valid restrictive covenants, or so-called equitable easements, in favor of the premises of said three defendants,² who have property rights that said premises of the plaintiff be not used except for residential purposes." (Emphasis added.) No appeal was taken from this decree. The present taking followed on July 13, 1962, a year after the entry and recording of Chief Justice Williamson's decree.

I. Critical to the determination of whether or not these claimants had a compensable interest in the land taken in this proceeding by virtue of the restrictive covenants in their deeds is the meaning of the term "property" as used in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides: "* * * nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." U.S.Const. amend. V. It has long been settled that the protection of this provision is limited to takings of "property." Kimball Laundry Co. v. United States, 338 U.S. 1, 5, 69 S. Ct. 1434, 93 L.Ed. 1765 (1949). However, it is equally clear that the term "property" is to be broadly interpreted. As the Supreme Court has stated, the conception of "property" in its constitutional sense "denote(s) the group of rights inhering to the citizen's relation to the physical thing, as the right to possess, use and dispose of it. * * * (I)t deals with * * * the individual's `interest' in the thing in question. * * * The constitutional provision is addressed to every sort of interest the citizen may possess." (Emphasis added.) United States v. General Motors Corp., 323 U.S. 373, 378, 65 S.Ct. 357, 359, 89 L.Ed. 311 (1945). It has also been authoritatively determined that "Though the meaning of `property' as used * * * in the Fifth Amendment is a federal question, it will normally obtain its content by reference to local law." United States ex rel. T. V. A. v. Powelson, 319 U.S. 266, 279, 63 S.Ct. 1047, 1054, 87 L.Ed. 1390 (1943); United States v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256, 266, 66 S.Ct. 1062, 90 L.Ed. 1206 (1946).

When we look to local law in the present case, we find that Chief Justice Williamson has characterized the interests of these claimants vis-a-vis the land of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portland condemned by the government in this proceeding as valid restrictive covenants, so-called equitable easements, constituting "property rights." The government correctly points out that this conclusion, not being necessary to the resolution of the issues before the Chief Justice, is not technically binding on it in this proceeding, under principles either of res judicata or of collateral estoppel. Partmar Corp. v. Paramount Picture Theatres Corp., 347 U.S. 89, 91, 74 S.Ct. 414, 98 L.Ed. 532 (1954); Cromwell v. County of Sac, 94 U.S. (4 Otto) 351, 352-58, 24 L.Ed. 195 (1876); 1 Moore, Federal Practice para. 0.401 at 4022-23 (2d ed. 1961). Nevertheless, this Court accepts the Chief Justice's ruling as a correct statement of the Maine law and one which has a logical basis. The Maine court has long recognized that restrictive covenants create enforceable rights, which have been variously characterized as negative easements and as servitudes in the nature of easements. Leader v. LaFlamme, 111 Me. 242, 88 A. 859 (1913); Herrick v. Marshall, 66 Me. 435 (1877). Under Maine law such a covenant runs with the land for the benefit of successive grantees of the dominant estate, any one of whom may maintain an action in equity for its enforcement. Caron v. Margolin, 128 Me. 339, 343, 147 A. 419 (1929). With respect to the effect of restrictive covenants in a development, the Maine court has further stated that they were "for the benefit of all the lots and would run with each lot in the hands of the grantees of the subdivider and in the hands of subsequent grantees." (Emphasis added.) Leader v. LaFlamme, supra, 111 Me. at 245,³ ...