275 Mo. 212 | Mo. | 1918
The plaintiffs instituted this suit in the circuit court of Jasper County against the defendants, for the purpose of having the streets and alleys in First Addition to East Joplin City, now incorporated in and constituting a part of the City of Joplin, Jasper County, Missouri, as laid off on the surface of the ground by the original owners.of the land on which the addition is located, ascertained, determined and established. The full prayer is “that the said streets and alleys as laid off on the surface of the ground by the original owners be ascertained, determined and established, and the acts of said original owners be confirmed and adjudged; that all lots and tracts of land owned by plaintiffs and others likewise situated in said addition be ascertained, determined, established and adjudged as the same was laid and staked off by the original owners on the surface of said ground,; that said defendant, City of Joplin, be perpetually enjoined and restrained from changing the lot lines as-originally established by the original owners, of the streets and alleys, as laid off and established by the original owners, or from exercising any dominion over any part of the lots and tracts of ground owned by these plaintiffs, inconsistent with lines and boundaries as laid off and staked on the surface of said ground by the original owners; and that said defendant city be perpetually enjoined and restrained from passing any ordinances authorizing any improvements otherwise than in conformity with the lines made by said original owners; that said defendant V. E. Koch, a contractor,
The material parts of the answer are as follows:
That on the 30th day of May, 1872, the owners of the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section two, township twenty-seven, range thirty-three, Jasper County, Missouri, being the same owners as those said owners who platted the said addition entitled “East Joplin City,” as aforesaid, made and executed a plat of and dedicated a town addition located on said last mentioned land, and entitled the same, “First Addition to East Joplin City,” a copy of which marked “Exhibit C” and “Exhibit D” is attached hereto and the same, together with the notations and averments thereon, are made a part hereof and of the averments of this answer, the said plat being duly filed for record in the office of the Recorder in said Jasper County, Missouri, on the 3rd day of June, 1872; and that said plat, with the dedication of the streets and alleys to the public use as therein provided, at all times since, has been accepted, recognized and treated as an addition to the city of Joplin, by this defendant and the municipal corporation of which it is the successor.
But said defendant further says that by reason of mistake and accident in computing and drafting said plat of East Joplin City, the same is inconsistent and re
And said defendant says, following upon the uncertainty, mistakes, confusion in respect of said lines as aforesaid, the plaintiffs herein and numerous of the other occupants of said additions have been and are encroaching upon the streets ’ and alleys thereof,
And defendant says that all of the parties plaintiffs, and all the numerous owners, residents, and occupants of all and every the various lots and tracts and parcels in said additions, more numerous than is practicable to bring them all before this court, are equálly interested in having the boundaries and lines of said additions and of the streets and alleys thereof determined in one action, and that the same is necessary in the premises, in order to avoid a multiplicity of suits at law, and which would necessarily have to be resorted to if the relief prayed for in this answer be denied.
Wherefore, said defendant, City o;f Joplin, prays that the court correct and amend the said East Joplin City''plat, and harmonize and adjust the lines thereof in. accordance with the intentions of the grantors thereof; and that the court fix and determine the external boundaries of both said additions, and the lines and boundaries of the streets and alleys thereof, as against the • said plaintiffs, and by representation against all parties having a common interest in the subject of this action, and for any other and further relief as to the court may seem just and proper in the premises.
The reply was a general denial.
After hearing the evidence, which is very voluminous, the court found the issues for the defendants and rendered judgment as prayed for in the answer.
In 'so far as the survey of this addition is concerned, the dedication of the streets and alleys to the public and the staking off- of the lots and blocks according to their frontage upon said streets and alleys by the owners of' the land platted in the year 1872, the evidence is practically undisputed.
The facts are tersely outlined by counsel for plaintiffs in their statement of the case, as will more fully appear presently from excerpts made from the finding of the court, which are preserved in the record.
The statement' of counsel for the plaintiff is as follows:
“During the year 1872, and long prior thereto, John H. Taylor, S. B. Corn and others were the owners in fee of the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 2, township 27," range 33, in this county, and they also owned' the land surrounding, adjoining and-adjacent thereto. They laid off this tract in streets, alleys and lots, as an addition to East Joplin City, now a part of the City of Joplin, and these plaintiffs, together with many other persons, became and are the owners of certain lots so laid off and sold by said, owners.
“The lots so purchased and sold-were improved by the purchaser, in conformity with certain stakes and boundary lines set and established by the owner. Said improvements were uniform and conformed to the streets and alleys, as then established and located on the surface of the earth.
“These plaintiffs, and other persons likewise situated, have since that date maintained their improver ments in conformity with these lines, and still claim to the lines as originally laid off.
“Some time thereafter the city of Joplin made another survey of this land, which, if conformed to, would move all .of the original owners, so that the streets, under the new arrangement, would cut twenty-five feet into the lots of the original owners and leave
“The city of Joplin answered, admitting the ownership of the original holders and asserting the disputes as to the true lines, and joins with the plaintiffs in the request to have the boundaries and lines of said addition, and all of the streets and alleys thereof, determined.”
The findings of the court insofar as they are material to the legal proposition presented for adjudication are as follows:
“The court now being fully advised in the premises doth find that the defendant, City of Joplin, is a city of the third class under the laws of the State of Missouri, and is the successor of East Joplin City, a municipal corporation of the State of Missouri, and of all additions heretofore made thereto, and of all the rights, privileges and jurisdiction thereof as limited by its authority and charter as such city of the third class, and that the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 2, township 27, range 33, is within the corporate limits of said city of Joplin. That on the 18th day of March, 1872, the owner of said southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 2, township 27, range 33, made and executed a plat of said l&st described land, laying the same off into blocks, lots, streets, and alleys, and entitled the same ‘East Joplin City/ and dedicated the streets and alleys to public use, which said plat, together with' the field notes thereto attached, was filed for record in the Recorder’s office of Jasper County, Missouri, on thé 20th day of March, 1872. That said field notes described said tract of land so platted and laid out as being 1320 feet east and west and 1320 feet north and south; that said plat shows the aggregate width of said tract of land east and west to be 1325 feet, and the court finds from the ■evidence that the actual width of said tract of land east
“That on the 30th day of May, 1872, the said owners of said land so platted and laid out as aforesaid, being also owners of the land immediately east thereof, to-wit, the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of said section 2, township 27, range 33, made and executed a plat of said last described land, laying the same off in blocks, lots, streets and alleys, and entitled the same ‘First Addition to East Joplin City,’ and dedicated the streets and alleys to public use, which said plat, together with the field notes thereon and ’thereto attached, was filed for.record in the Recorder’s Office of Jasper County, Missouri, on the 3rd day of June, 1872. That said field notes and also said plat described said tract of land so platted and laid off as being 1265.5
“Between the years 1872 and. 1892, the houses now belonging to the plaintiffs and a few others were erected, consisting of residences and outbuildings and fences on the lines as originally shown by said stakes, and these improvements were mostly along Main Street (now Broadway) and Hill Street, some as far north as Valley Street. About the year 1892, the exact date not shown, the owners who platted and laid out these two
The court then proceeds at some length in finding how the streets and property situate in First Addition to Joplin City had been improved since the resurvey of the same was made by said purchasers of the unsold lots just mentioned, which. was some twelve or fifteen yards after the original survey was made, which was in 1872. But all of these findings are foreign to the question here involved.
I. The only question presented by this record for determination is, which shall prevail, the plat of First Addition to Joplin City, as actually laid out, located and staked out upon the surface of the ground by the original .owners of the ‘ land and the makers of the plat, or the plat that erroneously attempted to follow the calls for monuments, courses and distances?
While there is but one plat in controversy, yet when viewed from the two aspects mentioned, the streets and alleys, lots and blocks indicated by the former occupy ground quite different from that called for by the latter. The pleadings recognize this difference, and the
We have just recently had this precise question before this court in the case of Laddonia v. Day, 265 Mo. 383, where we had under consideration Section 6573,- Revised Statutes 1879, which also governs this plat, and is now Section 10294, Revised Statutes 1909. That section reads: '
“If any person shall sell or offer for sále any lot within any city, town or village, or any addition .thereto, before the plat thereof be made out, acknowledged and recorded, as aforesaid, such person shall forfeit a sum not exceeding three hundred dollars for every lot which he shall sell or offer to sell. Such maps or plats of such cities, towns, villages and additions made, acknowledged, certified and recorder, shall be a sufficient conveyance to vest the fee of such parcels of land as are therein named, described or intended for public uses in such city, town or village, when incorporated, in trust and for the uses therein named, expressed or intended, and for no other use or purpose. If such city, town or village shall not be incorporated,, then the fee of such lands conveyed as aforesaid shall be vested in the proper county in like trust, and for the uses and purposes aforesaid, and none other.”
In discussing that statute, this court, on page 397, said:
“The question involved in this case is too important and far-reaching, either for good or evil, to rest unsettled, and for one I am now in favor of eliminating from the jurisprudence of this State, forever, all of the evil that still lingers in the law regarding this matter, which said Section 10294 was evidently designed to eradicate. In the administration of the law the courts have, at times, through inadvertence or over
“The old rules of courses, distances and monuments when concededly applicable to the conveyance of rural property — after conveyance made and the vendee has been placed in possession of the property by the vendor, and large and lasting improvements have been made and placed thereon — the courts of this and many, if not of all, other states, have not hesitated for one moment to suspend through the application of the doctrine of estoppel, in order to carry out the real intent and purpose of the parties and to mete out equity and justice between them and their privies in contract, blood and estate.
“In many such cases that doctrine of estoppel has been applied to the conveyances of farms, to grants of rights of way for railroads, and even to the sale of city property.
“Those cases are so numerous and familiar to the bench and bar that it would be a supererrogation of labor and a waste of space to cite them.
“The courts in those cases work out through the principles of equity precisely what the Legislature evidently designed to accomplish by the enactment of the statute in question. Or in other words, the frequent errors and the many mistakes made by surveyors and property owners in laying out towns and cities and additions thereto, fraught with the hundreds of incidental and irreparable evils thereof, were the causes that gave birth to that statute; and the evident design was that when such a plat had been executed and filed in conformity to the statute covering the land owned by the party malting the addition and dedicating the streets and alleys indicated by the plat filed therewith, then the
“Neither the public, the owners of the streets, nor the purchasers of the lots are so much interested in the question as to whether or not the plat conforms to the points of the compass or to the lines of the survey of sections and quarter sections, as they are in the certainty of the location of the lots and blocks and streets and alleys.
“Monuments are easily removed or destroyed, and for that reason they frequently disappear; but additions to towns and cities, laid out into lots and blocks and streets and alleys, with buildings erected upon the former and the streets improved, which is the very purpose of the addition, are not easily removed or destroyed. In the latter case, if a mistake is made of the true line of the street or of a lot or block, as a rule it only affects the party or parties making it; but in the former, the city and every property owner in the addition is of necessity affected thereby; and if that rule and not the statute is observed, each and all of them will be more or less damaged thereby.
“Any other construction of the statute would practically nullify and destroy the highly remedial provisions thereof, and in' case of a mistake as previously indicated, that entire part of the city, and all of the property owners therein, would be thrown into confusion and uselessly damaged more or less; and in many eases the damages would be irreparable.
“We, are, therefore, of the opinion that the.judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded to the circuit court for a new trial in conformity to the views herein expressed.”
The views announced in the Laddonia case, supra, were confirmed by this court in the case of Macom v. Brewster, 273 Mo. 616, in an opinion written by Bond, J., on March 4, 1918.
For the reasons stated the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded to the circuit court with directions to render a decree for the plaintiffs as prayed for in the petition.