81 Tenn. 289 | Tenn. | 1884
delivered the opinion of the court.
Bill filed January 1, 1878, to enforce an express vendor’s lien for unpaid purchase money of land. The defendant filed a cross-bill for a deduction from the purchase price by reason of the partial closure of a •street bounding the land. The chancellor made the •deduction claimed, and, upon the appeal of the original ■complainant, the Referees recommend a reversal of the ■decree. The exceptions to the report open the case.
The deed of the complainant to the defendant describes the land sold and conveyed as contiguous to
The deed itself, as we have seen, shows that the land sold and bought was a lot in a specified plan of lots laid off adjacent to the city of Jackson. It calls for streets on three sides of the land, the street on the west being designated as Short street. Tha-averment of the cross-bill is that the plan was graduated to the scale, and that short Street was marked thereon as of the width of 50 feet, and that the sale-
The plan of the land was in the possession of the agent in his office, and hung up publicly for inspection. The defendant and his brother prove that the sale was by this plan, and that Short street was marked by the agent himself as of the width of 50-feet, the figures 50 being written on the space for the street in the plan. The defendant’s brother deposes that he is himself a draftsman, and could see from the eye that the plan was graduated, and that Short street showed a greater width than the other streets. The
The authorities are "uniform, it is believed, that when the owner of land sells it as building lots, bounding them on streets of a specified width as laid down on a map, but not actually opened, the purchasers acquire a legal right as against the grantor to have the streets opened to the width designated.on the map: 3 Wash. Real Prop., 417. The law has been so recognized by this court: Leake v. Cannon, 2 Hum., 169; Scott v. Cheatham, 12 Heis., 713; Hardy v. Memphis, 10 Heisk., 127. If the land on which the streets are laid belong at the time to the vendor, the purchaser may as against the vendor and those claiming under him by the same sale enforce the opening of the •streets, or the keeping of them open, as was held in .the first of the cases cited. If for any reason, this
No exception was taken to the report of the clerk in the court below upon the amount of damage sustained' by the defendant by narrowing the street. Nor was any exception made by the complainant to the report of the Eeferees, nor any question made in the argument submitted in her behalf on this point. The report of the Eeferees will therefore be set aside, and the decree of the chancellor affirmed with-costs.