Baker v. Combs

298 S.W.2d 307
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedFebruary 1, 1957
StatusPublished

This text of 298 S.W.2d 307 (Baker v. Combs) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baker v. Combs, 298 S.W.2d 307 (Ky. Ct. App. 1957).

Opinion

MOREMEN, Judge.

This appeal seeks to determine the correct location of an alley in the city of Hazard. The parties stipulated that an alley, 15 feet in width, existed and extended between Jail and Campbell Streets, but disagreed sharply where it was situated on the ground. The record contains voluminous proof, maps, charts, and copies of deeds all of which appear to be, in some degree, conflicting.

Prior to February 14, 1914, W. H. Miller and his wife Mahala Miller owned all the property in a certain block in Hazard which was bound on the north side by Jail Street, on the south side by Campbell Street, on the east side by High Street and on the west side by Main Street, with the exception of a lot located on the corner of [308]*308Main and Campbell Streets and a lot located on the corner of High and Campbell Streets.

On February 14, 1914, W. H. Miller and his wife conveyed to J. G. Campbell all the land they owned which fronted on Main Street. At the time of this conveyance no alley extended from Jail to Campbell Street. On April 11, 1914, the new owners sold a lot from their property situated at the corner of Jail and Main Streets to Perry County and it eventually became the site of the Perry County jail. The particular description on this deed reads:

“Beginning on a stake at the corner of Main and Boggs Street; thence N 14 SO E 66 feet to a stake; thence N 81 45 W 85 feet to a stake; thence S 6 36 W 60 Feet to a stake; thence S 88 45 E 75 feet to the beginning.”

None of the maps identifies Boggs Street and neither is it explained by the testimony given. About the only thing' that seems certain from the maps and the proof is that this lot is located at the northwest corner of the block. Careful study of the map has failed to give us any indication of the depth of the lot from Main Street back to where the purported alley might be. This deed to the county, however, contained this provision:

“There is also granted and conveyed by this deed unto the second party, the right to have kept open, and for the use of the second party its successors and assigns, an alley which shall include all the strip between the eastern end of this property and the property of W. H. Miller.”

We do not have to discuss the sufficiency of the description in connection with the dedication because the parties have stipulated that such an alley exists, but it is noted that since the lines of the county’s strip and the lines of the property belonging to W. H. Miller are coincidental, it is impossible to place a 15-foot strip between them as called for by the above language. This fact indicates that the parties intended the 15-foot strip to be taken from the property being conveyed. They had no right to dedicate an alley across land belonging to the Millers.

The lot immediately abutting the county property to the south was conveyed by deed dated April 13, 1914, to Hazard Wholesale Baking and Supply Company. The particular description uses the corner of the Perry County jail site lot as a beginning point and we gain no helpful information as to location on the ground from the descriptive words used.

As to the alley, this provision was made:

“It is understood and a part of this trade that the parties hereto shall have an alley opened, at the back of said lot, 15 feet wide, for the use of the parties hereto, and shall run across the back of this lot, in the event that an alley is opened through the back of the line of lots in this block.”

This dedication, unlike the previous deed; indicates that the 15-foot alley “shall run across the back of this lot.” In other words, the alley would constitute the rear portion of the lot conveyed.

The next adjoining lot to the south was conveyed to Hazard Lodge No. 145 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. This description also begins at a corner of an abutting lot which adds no certainty to the lots already described. As to the alley, it was said:

“It is agreed by the parties hereto that an alley 15 feet wide shall be opened at the back of said lot to be used by the parties hereto subscribing.”

The parties subscribing, of course, were the grantors and if an easement was being created, necessarily it was an exception from that portion of the land which was being conveyed by the same instrument.

[309]*309The next abutting lot to the south was conveyed to Allen Deaton and this deed purported to begin at a point in the southern end of the block unlike those heretofore discussed whose location depended upon a point in the northern end of the block. This lot was tied up with the lot on the southwest corner of the block and began on a stake on Main Street at the northwest corner of the Commercial Hotel lot. If the Commercial Hotel lot may be located with any degree of accuracy, we may have some clue to the location of the other lots. In this deed, the alley provision was as follows:

“It is agreed by the parties hereto that an alley IS feet wide shall be opened at the back of said lot to be used by the public * *

However, we have been unable to locate this corner lot. Two maps were filed which were prepared by W. G. Bobbitt; one undertakes to give the layout of the entire block with which we are concerned, but this large map gives neither distances nor descriptions and has been of no value in determining exact locations. The second map filed by the same surveyor gives some few directions and distances insofar as the eastern half of this block is concerned, but shows no distances or directions in connection with the western half of the block which is the one with which we are most vitally concerned. It is interesting to note in this connection that when certain of his descriptions are projected, they do not coincide with the lines shown on the map if we take as being true north the direction indicated on the map. The two maps, above referred to, were filed by appellees. Appellants filed a map prepared by John Fitzpatrick and this map discloses marked similarity to the first map described above and contains neither description nor measures of distances. It differs from the first map above described only in that the alley, which lies approximately at a halfway point in the middle of the block, is definitely shown to be there by lines arbitrarily drawn.

The remaining lot has a description which was drawn with some particularity and probably would give us some clue toward a solution of this case if we had been supplied with a well-defined starting point and a map upon which to plot the remaining area of the lot.

The contention of the parties boils down to a solution of the question of whether it was the intention of the grantors to dedicate an alley over the back 15 feet of the property described and conveyed. It is apparent that the grantors could not have dedicated an alley on property belonging to the Millers whose property abutted all of these lots we have described at the rear or easterly side of the lots .conveyed.

From the foregoing, it may be seen the trial court was faced with a record which was incomplete in many phases, but upon submission, in a written opinion filed, he decided that the lot belonging to Vera S. Combs and Vera H. Salyer, whose title had been derived through the Millers, was situated in the easterly half of the block facing High Street and was not traversed by the alley.

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Related

Wood v. Harmon
157 S.W.2d 292 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976), 1941)
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287 S.W.2d 593 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 1956)

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Bluebook (online)
298 S.W.2d 307, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baker-v-combs-kyctapp-1957.