6 N.Y.S. 542 | The Superior Court of the City of New York and Buffalo | 1889
The parties to the action were severally the owners of lots and buildings on them in a block in this city. The former owner of the block had conveyed the whole of it to different persons, in various portions. In each of the conveyances by him was a covenant by the grantee for himself and his assigns that neither he nor his assigns would erect, suffer, or permit upon the premises conveyed any tenement-house, and it was agreed that this covenant should run with the land. The parties to this action held under some of these conveyances. The defendant built upon her lot a tenement-house, and had maintained it up to the time of the bringing of this action. Under the facts as found by the judge he was justified in holding that the plaintiff was entitled to an injunction restraining the defendant from maintaining the tenement-house she had built on her lot, and also in holding that it did not appear that such a restraint would be inequitable, because the covenant, if specifically enforced, would substantially deprive the defendant of the only use of her lot to which it could be profitably devoted, and that whatever change there had been in the neighborhood, it did not deprive the plaintiff of a right to an injunction, inasmuch as the covenant had been made between the parties originally as a preventive of the injurious effects of such a change,
Freedman, J., concurs.