151 Mass. 79 | Mass. | 1890
The plaintiff and the defendant are both owners of building lots sold with reference to the same plan, which displays a large tract cut up into house lots and ways. The only public way near the tract is North Street, which is shown on the west side of the plan. The plan shows ways leading directly to this street from the plaintiff’s lots. Her lots also are drawn as abutting upon a way called Grant Avenue, from which there is delineated, extending in an opposite direction from North Street, a way called Centre Avenue, which begins directly opposite two of the plaintiff’s lots, at a distance of ñfty-five feet, on the other side of Grant Avenue, and leads one hundred and eighty-one feet to another way laid down as Cliff Avenue. Neither Centre Avenue nor Cliff Avenue leads to any public street, but from Cliff Avenue there is an agreeable view of the sea, without, however,, any access to it. The defendant owns all the land on the north of Centre Avenue, and has enclosed about one quarter of the avenue in width throughout its whole length. He also has enclosed a triangle at the corner of Centre and Cliff Avenues, which on the plan appears bounded by dotted lines. The two sides of the triangle on the streets continue the side lines of the streets in the same directions until they meet at the corner, but the rest of the street lines are unbroken. The plaintiff seeks an injunction against such enclosures or obstructions.
The only question worthy of discussion is whether the private rights of way, if any, to which the plaintiff is entitled by reason of the reference to the plan in her deeds, extend to Centre Avenue. We are of opinion on the whole that they do not. The cases here and elsewhere show that there are limits to the easements raised in this way by implication, even if there are not limits to the power of creating easements when it is attempted by express words. A reference to a plan like this, laying out a large tract, does not give every purchaser of a lot a "right of way over every street laid down upon it. In Regan v. Boston Gas Light Co, 137 Mass. 37, a case somewhat like the present, it was held that the defendant could close a whole series of streets shown on the
It follows, a fortiori, that the plaintiff has no easement to have the triangle kept open. Moreover, the dotted lines on the plan are not a sufficient indication that it was to be kept open. They divide it from the adjacent ways and the fact that they are not unbroken, as elsewhere on the plan, at most only raises a doubt as to the intentions of the owner. See Attorney General v. Whitney, 137 Mass. 450. Whether there are other objections still, we need not consider.
It was argued for the plaintiff, that the ways and the triangle were dedicated to the public by the making and recording of the plan, and the sale of lots with reference to it. The suggestion is answered, so far as the triangle is concerned, by what we have said already; and as to the ways, at least, those acts were not sufficient to dedicate them in this Commonwealth. Pub. Sts. c. 49, § 94. Bowers v. Suffolk Manuf. Co. 4 Cush. 332. Morse v. Stocker, 1 Allen, 150. Hayden v. Stone, 112 Mass. 346. Abbott v. Cottage City, 143 Mass. 521, 524. Fur
Bill dismissed.