325 Mass. 85 | Mass. | 1949
The plaintiff brings this bill in equity to restrain the defendants from erecting a garage on land over which the plaintiff claims to have a right of way. The evidence is reported and the judge made a report of the material facts found by him.
The pertinent facts may be summarized as follows: The plaintiff is the owner of a lot of land in Waltham on which there is a dwelling. The defendants own land which adjoins the plaintiff’s lot to the west and to the north and is desig-noted as lot “B” on the plan, material features of which are shown on page 87, post. The defendants’ lot is bounded on the north by a narrow strip of land owned by the Commonwealth which runs to the Charles River. The southern boundaries of both lots form a continuous line. Wall Street lies to the south of the lots and adjoins them so that its easterly boundary if extended coincides with the westerly boundary of the plaintiff’s lot, forming a line perpendicular to the southern boundary of the lots. Wall street is a private way thirty-three feet wide and is paved up to the point where it adjoins the land of the plaintiff and the defendants. Beyond the point where the pavement ends “no way had been laid out, the land being rough and uncultivated and having thereon grass and stones.”
Both parcels of land involved in this litigation were at one time owned by one Wood. In 1922 what is now the plaintiff’s lot was conveyed to one Durkiwicz by a deed which referred to the property as “land in Waltham situated on the easterly side of Wall Street, a private way.” That part of the description contained in the deed to Durkiwicz here pertinent reads: “Beginning at the southwesterly corner of the granted premises at a point in the easterly line of said Wall Street at land of Hughes; thence running northerly on the easterly line of said Wall Street one hundred
quoted. In August, 1948, Wood conveyed the land comprising lots “A” and “B” on the above mentioned plan
In November, 1948, the defendants commenced the erection of a garage. The site of the proposed garage is twelve feet from the west line of the plaintiff’s lot and fifty feet back from Wall Street. The plaintiff contends that she has a right of way over the strip of property to the west of her land corresponding to a northerly extension of Wall Street and that this way is not only coextensive with her property but extends on northerly down to the river. If only the first part of the plaintiff’s contention is correct, then, obviously, the proposed garage would interfere with the plaintiff’s right of passage over the way, for it would be located on a continuation of Wall Street at a point opposite the plaintiff’s land. The judge concluded that the oral and documentary evidence did not warrant a finding or ruling that any way was created by grant, and that if there was an attempt to create one it was “too indefinite and uncertain to establish any rights thereunder.” He found, however, that the plaintiff had a right “both by prescription and by necessity” to pass over land of the defendants along her western boundary from Wall Street to a point opposite the northerly line of her residence. This way, which the judge found to be twenty feet wide and forty feet in length, did not embrace the area where the defendants’ garage was to be built. A decree was entered accordingly, from which the plaintiff appealed.
Whether the plaintiff acquired a right of way by grant depends on the effect of the deed from Wood to Durkiwicz, her predecessor in title.
The question remains whether the deed to Durkiwicz, although it conveyed no fee in any part of the way, created an easement of way. The plaintiff invokes the familiar rule that, when a grantor conveys land bounded on a street or way, he and those claiming under him are estopped to deny the existence of such street or way, and the right thus acquired by the grantee (an easement of way) is not only coextensive with the land conveyed, but embraces the entire length of the way, as it is then laid out or clearly indicated and prescribed. Tobey v. Taunton, 119 Mass. 404, 410. Ralph v. Clifford, 224 Mass. 58, 60. Oldfield v. Smith, 304 Mass. 590, 595-596. Frawley v. Forrest, 310 Mass. 446, 451. Daviau v. Betourney, ante, 1, 3.
Although there is some authority to the contrary (see
The extent of the plaintiff’s rights beyond the limits of her land “will depend upon, and may be shown by, extrinsic facts, as they existed at the time of the conveyance.” Frawley v. Forrest, 310 Mass. 446, 451. Fox v. Union Sugar Refinery, 109 Mass. 292, 295-296. The question is one of fact. Driscoll v. Smith, 184 Mass. 221, 223. Since all of the evidence is before us, we are in a position to decide it. We are of opinion that the plaintiff’s easement ought not to extend beyond the limits of her land. In the closely analogous situation involving the rights of grantees of lots bounded on a way shown on a plan referred to in a deed, the court in determining the extent of the easement has taken into consideration what was necessary for the enjoyment of the premises granted (although the necessity need not be an absolute or physical one) and whether the way referred to at its distant end connected directly or indirectly with a public highway. Wellwood v. Havrah Mishna Anshi Sphard Cemetery Corp. 254 Mass. 350, 355. See Prentiss v. Gloucester, 236 Mass. 36, 53. Here, if the extension of Wall Street were to be continued beyond the limits of the plain
It follows that the decree of the court below is reversed and a new decree is to be entered based on a right of way appurtenant to the plaintiff’s land by the prolongation of Wall Street, at its original width, along the entire length of the plaintiff’s western boundary. The plaintiff is to have costs of this appeal.
So ordered.
The plan which bears'the date of September 30, 1948, was not in existence when the conveyances to|Durkiwicz and the Savoys were made and was not referred to in either of the„deeds.
The deed from the Savoys to the defendants contains the recital “subject to a right of way in Wall Street, a private way of record.” But this gave no rights to the plaintiff who was a stranger to that deed. Haverhill Savings Bank v. Griffin, 184 Mass. 419, 421. Hodgkins v. Bianchini, 323 Mass. 169, 172.