White v. Jefferson
| Citation | 124 N.W. 373,110 Minn. 276 |
| Decision Date | 14 January 1910 |
| Docket Number | 16,094 - (147) |
| Parties | WILLIAM G. WHITE v. RUFUS C. JEFFERSON and Others |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
On Reargument February 11, 1910
On Reargument March 11, 1910.
Action in the district court for Ramsey county to determine adverse claims to a parcel of land. The answer alleged that Rufus C Jefferson and E. H. Hoard were the owners thereof in fee simple. The facts were stipulated and it appeared from the stipulation that defendants Jefferson and Hoard became owners of lots 23 and 24 under execution sales, tax deeds, an administrator's deed and an action to determine adverse claims, in all of which proceedings and deeds the property was described as lots 23 and 24 Hewitt's Outlots, First Division, "according to the recorded plat of said Hewitt's Outlots, First Division, on file and of record," etc. The case was submitted upon the pleadings and the stipulation of facts (which provided that the court was to be at liberty to draw the same inferences from the facts that it might properly draw if the same were produced in evidence on the trial) to Bunn, J., who ordered judgment in favor of defendants. From an order denying his motion for a new trial, plaintiff appealed. Reversed.
Dedicated Street -- Vacation Before Transfer -- Conveyance -- Presumption.
The strip of land here in controversy was originally the part of a dedicated street which lay between two corner lots. That street was vacated. That fact appeared of record. Defendants afterwards acquired from the original proprietor who made the plat title to the two lots. Subsequently plaintiff purchased the strip from the same person. In an action to determine adverse claims it is held:
1. When the owner of the land executes a plat thereto, he dedicates to the public an easement of way in the streets streets there appearing and retains the fee therein subject to such easement.
2. That owner may, in the exercise of his right of freedom of contract, sell a lot abutting on a street, and part with or reserve the fee to the middle of the street, subject to the public easement.
3. What disposition he has in fact made, and what his grantee receives, depends upon the intention of the parties. In the absence, however, of expression or necessary implication from peculiar circumstances to the contrary, the law from many considerations of public policy imputes or presumes an intention to pass to the grantee title to the lot and to the middle of the adjoining street, subject to the easement of public way.
4. Where, however, a street has been legally vacated before any lot has been transferred, the reasons for imputing or presuming intention have ceased. The proprietor holds the land free from the easement as land when he parts with the lots abutting it. Title to a tract correctly and accurately described by metes and bounds on the plat passes, but not to a parcel distinct from it.
5. Plaintiff acquired title to the strip here in controversy, if his deed from the original proprietor was valid. Whether it was valid is left to be determined on the new trial necessarily granted.
William G. White, for appellant.
A conveyance of land bounded on an existing highway vests in the grantee the fee to the center of the highway, solely because the court presumes that such is the intention of the parties to the instrument. This intention is to be ascertained in each particular case from the language of the conveyance and from the facts and circumstances surrounding the transaction. Elliott, Roads & Streets, § 723; In re Robbins, 34 Minn. 99. If a deed of conveyance to land bordering on the highway carries title to the center of the highway, solely because of this presumption, then there would seem to be no escape from the logical conclusion that when the facts which give rise to the presumption cease to exist the presumption also falls to the ground.
A conveyance of land bounded by an existing highway vests in the grantee the fee to the center of the highway, because such is presumed to be the intention of the parties and not because the land upon which the highway is located is "appurtenant" to the land upon which it borders, nor because it is "a part thereof." The highway is a distinct and separate parcel of land and one tract of land can never be appurtenant to another tract. Harris v. Elliott, 10 Pet. 25, 54; Investment Co. of Philadelphia v. Ohio & N.W. Ry. Co., 41 F. 378; Humphreys v. McKissock, 140 U.S. 304. Nor does the soil upon which a vacated highway was formerly located become a part of the adjoining property.
A conveyance of land which is described either by definite metes and bounds, or by lot and block of a recorded plat, which adjoins other land of the grantor that had formerly been part of a street or highway conveys no portion of the tract which had formerly constituted such street or highway. It will not be presumed that the grantor intended such conveyance to vest in the grantee any part of the former highway, and a presumption that the grantee takes title in fee to the center of the street is an impossible one because there is no street or highway to which such presumption can apply. Harris v. Elliott, supra; Brown v. Taber, 103 Iowa 1; Sanchez v. Grace, 114 Cal. 295; Chicago v. Des Moines, 97 Iowa 25; Overland v. Alpenfels, 30 Colo. 163. In Atchison v. Patch, 28 Kan. 470, 473, the court decided only that the right to use a vacated public street passed to the purchaser from the adjacent lot owner by a conveyance or other proceedings in which the lot was designated by its number on a recorded plat. Challiss v. Atchison, 45 Kan. 398.
John E. Stryker, for respondents.
The idea of an intention in the grantor to withhold his interest in the road to the middle of it, after parting with all his right and title to the adjoining land, is never to be presumed. It would require an express declaration to sustain such an inference. 3 Kent, Com 349 (in later editions 433). Where a map or plat is referred to in a conveyance it becomes, for the purpose of identifying the land conveyed, a part of the deed. And if a natural monument like a stream, or an artificial monument like a street, is shown upon the plat, distances must yield to such a monument which is by reference described in the deed. Nicolin v. Schneiderhan, 37 Minn. 63.
In Minnesota the dedication of property for use as a street does not pass fee title to the public or municipality. Schurmeier v. St. Paul & Pac. R. Co., 10 Minn. 59 (82); Railroad Co. v. Schurmeier, 7 Wall. 272. It is also a well-understood doctrine in this state that in case of the conveyance of a lot abutting on a street, the purchaser is presumed to take the title to the middle of the street, and he takes this as a part of the lot. Gilbert v. Emerson, 60 Minn. 62, 67; Wait v. May, 48 Minn. 453, 461. Appellant seeks to place a limitation upon the doctrines thus settled in this state and he supports his position, neither by analogy to our law nor by a suggested development in accordance with the spirit of our decisions, but by citing cases from other jurisdictions, and the cases which he thus cites either construe statutes unlike ours, or the questions determined by the foreign courts were wholly unrelated to the issues at bar.
A party purchasing real estate according to a plat, which bounds the tract conveyed by a highway, acquires not only a right to access, but a right to light and air across such highway. Adams v. Chicago, B. & N.R. Co., 39 Minn. 286; Lamm v. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. Ry. Co., 45 Minn. 71. It is doubtful if the vacation of a street, either before or after a conveyance in which its center line is made a boundary, results in depriving the purchaser of such right to light and air. Assume that a building had been erected on one of the lots purchased by defendants, and that one of the walls perforated by windows had been upon the line of La Salle street; the effect of the vacation would have been, if appellant is correct, that the owner of La Salle street, segregated from the abutting lots, would have the right (prescription excepted) to erect another structure immediately against the wall of such existing building and thus cut off its light and air. It is no answer to say that there was no building upon this lot, for a transfer, according to a recorded plat, conveys the same land in the case of improved property as of unimproved property. This illustration merely suggests the inconvenience of the shifting boundary which would result if appellant's contention were sustained. Tested by principle and precedent the common boundary line of defendants' lots was at the time of platting and ever since has been the center of La Salle street.
The charter provisions in force at the time of the vacation proceedings, viz., January 15, 1889, were substantially different from those now in force, and did not require the record of such proceedings in the office of the register of deeds, as a condition of the effectiveness or validity of a street vacation. Sp. Laws 1874, c. 1, subc. 4, § 8. Under the charter provisions then in force, a transcript of the vacating resolution must have been filed for record and recorded in the office of the register of deeds in order to afford constructive notice of the vacation. When the stipulation of facts upon which the controversy depends is read in the light of the charter provisions in force on January 15, 1889, viz., Sp. Laws 1874, c. 1, subc. 4, § 8, the premises upon which the court based its decision fall and with the premises its conclusion.
The parties did not in fact contract, as stated by the court "with reference to a record showing that no street existed." They contracted with reference to a plat which bounded the premises conveyed by a street. There...
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