White v. Jefferson

• Decision Date: 14 January 1910
• Citation: 124 N.W. 373,110 Minn. 276
• Parties: WHITE v. JEFFERSON et al.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

110 Minn. 276

124 N.W. 373

WHITE

v.JEFFERSON et al.^*

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Jan. 14, 1910.

Appeal from District Court, Ramsey County; George L. Bunn, Judge.

Action by William G. White against Rufus C. Jefferson and others to determine adverse claims. From an order denying plaintiff's motion to vacate and set aside a decision and for a new trial, plaintiff appeals. Reversed, and new trial ordered.

Syllabus by the Court

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:

When the owner of the land executes a plat thereto, he dedicates to the public an easement of way in the streets there appearing and retains the fee therein subject to such easement.

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.

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.

Where, however, a street has been legally vacated before any lot has been transferred, the reasons for imputing or presuming intention have cased. 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.

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, pro se.

John E. Stryker, for respondents.

JAGGARD, J.

Allie Hewitt duly platted certain land belonging to her as ‘Hewitt's Outlots, First Division.’ The short side of lots 23 and 24 fronted on one street and the long side abutted La Salle street. In 1889 La Salle street was duly vacated by the city council. The portion of that street between the lots is the land the title to which is here in controversy. Allie Hewitt remained owner of the lots until in 1892, when defendants acquired a fee-simple interest in said lots through deeds and proceedings in which the property was described as lots 23 and 24, Hewitt's Outlots, First Division, according to the recorded plat thereof. In 1898 Allie Hewitt died. In 1906 one Barnum, ‘in his capacity as trustee under the last will and testament of Allie Hewitt, deceased,’ executed to plaintiff a deed which purported to convey, inter alia, that portion of La Salle street, so called, lying between lots 23 and 24. The trial court found and ordered judgment for defendants in this an action to determine adverse claims. This appeal was taken from its order denying plaintiff's motion to vacate and set aside the decision and for a new trial.

1. The first question presented by the record concerns the title to the strip between the lots which had been a part of the street before its vacation.

Defendants' position is this: ‘That, had the respondents acquired lots 23 and 24 before the vacation of La Salle street, the boundary of the lots would have been the center line of the street, and that, if the street had been vacated after such purchase of the lots, their common boundary would still have been the center of the street, relieved, of course, of the public easement. * * * Now, if the platted boundary, which is that of the respondents' conveyances, was the center line of the street, and if vacation of the street after their acquisition of the property would not have changed that boundary, upon what principle had the area of the lots been diminished?’

On principle the answer is clear. In the first case at the time of the transfer the lots would front on a street; in the second case they would not front on a street. A conveyance according to a plat is a conveyance by recorded metes and bounds, except where the lots front on a street. Defendants' second proposition assumes the matter in controversy. The conclusion of course follows. But there is no argument. The fallacy of the defendants lies in postulating that the vacation of the street was without legal effect.

It is true that in cases presenting the question whether a grant according to a recorded plat of premises abutting on a street conveyed only the land described in the plat by metes and bounds, or also the fee to the middle of the street subject to easement of public use, the opinions of the courts have often contained utterances to the effect that the fee title to the middle of the street was a necessary or integral part of the lot indicated by the plat, that interest was part and parcel of the lot conveyed, that the center line of the street is a boundary line of abutting lots; that the grantor is estopped from denying a conveyance of the fee subject to the easement, and the like. Such general statements must, of course, be limited to the particular facts involved, and are not at all inconsistent with the application of another rule to a substantially different state of facts. Where the street had been vacated before the granting, are the facts substantially different? The rule in such a case can be determined only by a consideration of relevant principles.

The fundamental doctrine is that the law jealously protects the freedom of contract because of the constitutional right and of an obvious public policy. Accordingly the owner can sell a lot adjoining a street, and part with or reserve the interest in the street, subject to the easement, as he sees fit. What he has done in a particular case depends necessarily upon the intention of the parties. Defendants' brief furnishes the true rule: ‘The idea of an inference in a 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 presumed. It would require an express declaration to sustain such an inference.’ Kent, Com. 349 (later editions, 431). Every case which sustains the rule and which involves a street, and not a vacated street, to which our attention has been directed or which we have been able to discover after diligent and extensive search, is in accord in basing the rule on the intention of the parties.

When a deed contains an express reservation, or the circumstances justify the inference of intention not to convey a fee to any part of the street, the vendor remains its owner. If, for example, the owner should transfer the fee to the street subject to the easement to one person, and afterwards transfer the adjoining lots to other persons, the implication would be that he did not intend to grant to the latter any interest in the land which had been a street.

Where there is neither a deed containing such an express reservation nor circumstances justifying the inference of intention to reserve, the courts are called upon to determine the legal effect of the conveyance. It is clear that they have imputed intention to transfer the land described by metes and bounds and also the fee to the middle of the street subject to the public easement. There is good reason for this presumption. The rule which construes the deed most strongly against the grantor applies. 2 Denbitz on Land, p. 1441, § 1028. The parties contract with reference to and with the least constructive knowledge of the plat including the street. Such intention is the natural, and in the overwhelming majority of cases the actual, one. The rule is compelled by uncontrovertible public policy. The owner of the land platted usually becomes entirely dissassociated with the title to the land sold and has neither a proximate interest in nor a practical use for the qualified fee in the street. The interest of the vendee therein is immediate. It has direct and substantial value to him. Indeed, as Cole, J., said in Kimball v. Kenosha, 4 Wis. 321, 331, the lots would be ‘comparatively useless' without the implication of conveyance to the middle of the street. He is logically entitled to improve the property as he chooses. It conduces to the best use of the premises to allow him to do so in reliance on access to the street on the ground itself and for light and air above. So long as the land is used as a street these rights would be protected, irrespective of who owned the fee. But upon vacation of the street these rights would be legally destroyed unless the vendee had the fee. It is much more reasonable to vest that fee in him than in the usually remote party who originally platted the land. To allow the vendor to retain the fee would be a serious embarrassment to alienation and improvement of property which it consists with public policy to favor. On the other hand, the state itself is concerned, e. g., as to who should determine and pay for improvements to the street made under the power of taxation to be paid for in some form of local assessment. The owners of the lots adjoining the street are the natural ones to determine whether improvements should be made and what their character should be. They are the ones who logically would be, and who are, required to discharge the assessment levied for the improvement determined upon. Upon vacation of the street, they are naturally entitled to the street in its improved condition. Other practical considerations justify the reasonableness of the rule.

Where, however, the street has been vacated while...