220 Mich. 684 | Mich. | 1922
This is a bill to quiet title to certain
The. question involved is the respective rights of the parties under these contracts. It is one of construction depending on the true intent of the parties, the surrounding circumstances and the oral testimony as far as that may be properly considered. Under an allegation of fraud, all the negotiations leading up to the contracts and merging in them were admitted in evidence. An examination of the evidence clearly leads to the conclusion that the plaintiffs intended to convey to Ainsworth and Hurst all of the land owned by them bordering on Lake Erie, including the water rights appurtenant thereto. The defendants bought the property for summer homes. The chief inducement of the purchase was the water frontage. The first contracts described the eastern boundary as Lake Erie. Counsel for plaintiffs concede that this description included the land, shore and all rights in the water adjacent thereto. And the plaintiffs testified that in the first contracts they reserved nothing. These contracts were canceled and new ones , entered into, and in these new contracts, which are those here involved, is found a provision which it seems to me is very significant as to the question of intention to reserve the lake frontage. The provision is as follows:
“On further payment of $1,000, first party agrees to release from this contract, from time to time, one or more acres, in case of sale, on payment to first party at the rate of $500 per acre on condition that there is no default in any of the terms of this contract. No single acre, however, to have more than 80 feet of lake frontage.”
In view of this reference in the contracts to lake frontage and the absence of any express reservation,
Correctly speaking, the word “shore” applies only to the land adjacent to the sea or other tidal waters; it is the space or ground over which the tide ebbs and flows and is bounded by the high and low water mark. Our Great Lakes are not tidal waters. What, then, is meant by the shore of a lake unaffected by the tides? It is the land adjacent to the water, but how far from the water’s edge does it begin? In the absence of any banks or other highlands to mark the boundary, the only definite line it has is the water’s edge.
“The word ‘shore’ is strictly applicable only to the space between ordinary high and low water mark on a tidal river, sea or lake; but it is sometimes loosely used with reference to fresh water rivers, either as synonymous with the bank, or as denoting that portion of the bank which touches the margin of the stream at low water.” 1 Kinney Irrigation & Water Eights (2d Ed.), § 305.
“While always a question of construction depending on the true intent of the parties as derived from a consideration of the whole instrument, specific calls in a description of the boundaries of land to the edge, bank or shore of a watercourse, pond or lake, will, as a rule, be construed to limit the grant or conveyance to the water’s edge. 9 C. J. pp. 193, 194; citing Stover v. Lovoia, 8 Ont. W. R. 398, where it is held:
“Along the shore of a non-tidal river or of a navigable inland lake, is now well understood to mean along the edge of the water at its lowest mark, both*688 in this country and the United States. That may be called the American use of the word ‘shore,’ which in England is reserved for the ocean and has there a more limited meaning.”
A grant to Ainsworth and Hurst carries to the water’s edge, and therefore includes the shore with all riparian rights. This was the extent of the plaintiffs’ ownership. Ainsworth v. Hunting & Fishing Club, 159 Mich. 61.
We have carefully considered all other questions presented by counsel, but, in view of this disposition of the case, we do not deem it necessary to discuss them.
The decree dismissing the bill is affirmed,, with costs to the defendants.