Williams et al. v. Johnson
| Decision Date | 20 September 1912 |
| Citation | 149 S.W. 821,149 Ky. 409 |
| Parties | Williams et al. v. Johnson |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
Appeal from Laurel Circuit Court.
Reversed and remanded, with direction.
C. C. WILLIAMS for appellants.
HAZELWOOD & JOHNSON for appellee.
SETTLE
The five cases involved on this appeal were heard together in the court below; the parties, having waived the right of trial by jury, and submitted the law and facts to the court for its decision. The questions presented by the record being the same in each case, they will be considered and determined by us in the one opinion.
The appellee, T. J. Johnson, some years ago, owned ten and one-quarter acres of land in a suburb of the city of London, from which he sold and conveyed to the appellants, or their vendors, for building purposes, certain lots abutting on what was then known as the Manchester road. Later, these lots and the entire suburb of which they were a part, were included within the corporate limits of the city of London, and properly made a part of the municipality. When this was done, the city authorities, as was their right, converted the Manchester road into a macadamized street, and named it Manchester street; in accomplishing which the bed of the road in front of appellants' lots was, in the main, abandoned. The strip of ground thus left between appellants' lots and Manchester street varies in width from twenty to thirty-six and one-half feet; at some points embracing half of the old road; at others, all of it, but nowhere more than the width of the old road. Appellee set up claim to all the ground in front of appellants' lots, included in the old road bed, upon [411] the alleged ground that the appellants' deeds did not convey them the title to any part of the road bed, but left the title in him subject to the public easement, and that its abandonment as a roadway entitled him to the possession of the same. As appellants also claimed and were in possession of the ground in dispute, he brought against them actions in ejectment to recover it, and by the judgment appealed from was declared the owner and entitled to the possession thereof, but appellants were each given a narrow right of way over same in front of his lot to the street.
The answers to the petitions traversed the averments thereof, and by a second paragraph alleged appellants' ownership and possession of so much of the ground included in the old road as lies between their lots and the new street, resulting from the change and abandonment of the road and establishing of the street; and in addition alleged, in substance, that appellee had by sale and deed of general warranty, conveyed appellants, respectively, or the grantors of some of them, the lots south of and abutting on the old road, which passed to them the title to the ground occupied by the old Manchester road, subject to the public easement, the abandonment of which entitled them to the ground included in the old road bed, and its possession as well, and operated to extend the boundaries of their lots respectively to the street established in lieu of the old road. Moreover, that appellee's claim to the ground in controversy, if sustained, would prevent appellants from getting from their lots to the street and deprive them of its use and constitute a breach of the warranty contained in the several deeds by which appellee conveyed the lots. The second paragraph of each answer also contained a plea of estoppel based upon the deeds and the warranties referred to. The circuit court sustained demurrers to the second paragraph of the several answers, to which exceptions were taken. As the matters set up by these paragraphs, if established by proof, were sufficient to defeat the cause of action alleged in the several petitions, the ruling of the court upon the demurrers was error.
We think it manifest that the deeds by which appellee conveyed the lots, now owned by appellants, describe them as fronting and abutting upon the old road; indeed, at least two of them call to run to and with [412] the road, and the others for stakes at or in the road. It seems to be the...
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...v. Woolfolk, 90 Ky. 424, 14 S.W. 415, 12 Ky. Law Rep. 400; 9 A.L.R. 551; Coppin v. Manson, 144 Ky. 634, 139 S.W. 860; Williams v. Johnson, 149 Ky. 409, 149 S.W. 821; Blalock v. Atwood, 154 Ky. 394, 157 S.W. 694, 46 L.R. A. (N.S.) 3; and Henry v. Board of Trustees of Diocese of Kentucky, 207......
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...Street in this area was abandoned as a public thoroughfare. Apparently the court and the parties considered the case of Williams v. Johnson, 149 Ky. 409, 149 S.W.2d 821, as controlling on this point. In that case, however, the opposing parties conceded that part of a county road had been ab......
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...860; Williams, etc., v. Johnson, 149 Ky. 409, 149 S.W. 821; Blalock v. Atwood, 154 Ky. 395, 157 S.W. 694, 46 L. R. A. (N. S.) 3. In Williams v. Johnson, supra, the facts are nearly analogous those of the case at bar. It appears in that case that the city of London, having by proper authorit......
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